THEISTIC TENDENCIES IN JAPANESE BUDDHISM I

BY

H. DUMOULIN

Tokyo

Terms such as "monotheism", "polytheism", "pantheism" and "atheism", apparently well defined in the history of religions, have become vague and fluid in our times. It is evidently impossible to class religions simply according to the scheme of these terms. It has become apparent that there is no existing unmixed polytheism, just as there is no pure pantheism. In all religions there are found traces or tendencies of a latent monotheism, or to put it more modestly, of a theism in the sense of a faith in a transcendent reality which engages man. Even an "atheistic religion" - if the term is not con• sidered an intrinsic contradiction, but rather somewhat summarily denotes a religion without cult or faith in a superworldly being - evmces theistic elements and tendencies insofar as it is really prac• ticed. 2

1 This paper was originally read at the XIIth International Congress of the Inter· national Association for the History of Religions, held during August 1970 at Stock• holm. The following is a revised and enlarged version. 2 It is true that the expre88ion "theistic tendencies" is somewhat controversial in the literature on Buddhism. Yet the author believes that there is sufficient evidence to warrent the use of this term with regard to Japanese Buddhism. To be sure, one must guard against reading a Christian monotheism, or Christian categories, into Buddhism. In particular, we note that Buddhism, it seems, shows no inclination towards belief in a personal creator God who serves as the foundation of Christian theism. Even the idea of a primordial Buddha (adi-Inuldha), enlightened since time immemorial, and of the four or five Meditation-Buddhas, (dhyani-Inuldha) brought into being through his meditation, is basically different from the Christian belief in creation. Cf. H. von Glasenapp : "Der Buddhismus", in Die JunJ WeUreligionen, Diisseldorf and Cologne, 1967, p. 117. To be sure, the notion of Buddha as the Lord and Ruler of the universe (lokesvara) does appear in Mah8.yana Buddhism, but not the idea of a creator God. Fumio Masutani, a Japanese Buddhist scholar of national repute, also holds that with regard to creation the Buddhist view is "fundamentally different" from the Christian (in Living Buddhism in Japan, ed. Y. Tamura and W. P. Woodard, Tokyo, 1965, p. 49). In Japanese Buddhism, the theistic tendencies are rather evident in the religious practice. Moreover, it is not our intention to present theism in its full sense, the word tendency expre88es for us a certain reservation. THEISTIC TENDENCIES IN JAPANESE BUDDHISM 53

Buddhism in all its forms and phases, whether they were called atheistic or polytheistic or pantheistic, has never lacked theistic elements, eithel in the guise of a metaphysical Absolute or in the figure of superhuman beings. In early Buddhism it is chiefly a meta• physical consideration which discovers something absolute. God and divine beings may be denied; yet terms like Dharma and Nirvana suggest approaches to an absolute reality. And in popular Buddhism, veneration of the founder, Shakyamuni, very early turned into the cult of a superhuman being. In Mahayana Buddhism, philosophical speculation and religious practice are inseparably interwoven. The center of both is the figure of the Buddha. The philosophical system of Mahayana has developed this central figure to encompass the whole cosmos; and religious practice while it tends towards theistic images, is never wholly divorced from its foundation in monistic Mahayana metaphysics. Tendai and Kegon exhibit this cosmo-theistic monism in their philosophical systems, but the theistic tendency is most clearly manifest in Amida devotion, in tantric cults and in the rich Pantheon of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas described in the Mahayana sutras. It is impossible to trace here in detail the historical development of the various schools and tendencies. However, it may safely be said that the theistic tendencies which existed from the beginning, are most developed and emphasized in Japanese Buddhism. In his work, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples, Hajime Nakamura, has shown that it is a characteristic trait of the Japanese to incline towa.rds an "absolute devotion to a specific individual". In the reli• gious sphere, this inclination is manifested above all in the unreserved surrender of the disciple to his master, a surrender whose tradition extends through masters and patriarchs even to the founder of Bud• dhism. "A profound faith in the master and devotion to the Buddha have the same significance", says Nakamura, and he explains: "The attitude of absolute devotion to a specific person manifests itself as a sublimated attitude of complete devotion to the Buddha as an ideal person, and thus faith in Buddha is emphasized".l Just as the devotion to a person, the stress on faith so characte• ristic of Japanese Buddhism points in the direction of a theistic piety. And especially in the Buddhist schools of the Kamakura era (13th cent.), a distinctive propensity towards transcendence was added.

1 Way8 of Thinking of EatlteTlI Peoples, revised edition. Honolulu, 1964, pp. 454, 455.