Centre for Japanese Studies University of Marburg

OOCCCCAASSIIOONNAALL PPAAPPEERRSS

No. 29

Rationality, ritual and life-shaping decisions in modern

Prof. Dr. Michael Pye Centre for Japanese Studies University of Marburg

Marburg 2003

Edited by Centre for Japanese Studies University of Marburg Biegenstr. 9 35032 Marburg Germany Tel.: +49 (0)6421 28 24627 Fax: +49 (0)6421 28 28914 Email: [email protected]

Author Michael Pye Centre for Japanese Studies Religion and History of Ideas University of Marburg Biegenstr. 9 35032 Marburg Germany Tel.: +49 (0)6421 28 23662 Fax: +49 (0)6421 28 28914 Email: [email protected]

Copyeditor Petra Kienle Centre for Japanese Studies University of Marburg Biegenstr. 9 35032 Marburg Germany Tel.: +49 (0)6421 28 24908 Fax: +49 (0)6421 28 28914 Email: [email protected]

ISBN 3-8185-0373-7

Rationality, ritual and life-shaping decisions in modern Japan

Michael Pye

. 002. enmusubi or, October 2 h by aut Photo , which specializes in ū ing Daij ō ky ō at T votive tablet inscribing a lady A young

Rationality, ritual and life-shaping decisions in modern Japan

Introduction 3

Religion, rationality and modernisation 5

Religion, rationality and irrationality 5 Disenchantment and modernisation 7 The demythologisation of karma 10 Modernisation as intellectual shift 12

Persisting enchantment 14

Persisting enchantment in Singapore 14 Persisting enchantment in Japan 18

Life-shaping decisions in Japan 20

Shintō in the context of Japan's primal religious system 20 Name-giving 21 Traffic safety and good behaviour 25

Conclusions: primal religious systems in East Asia 27

References cited 30

Introduction

There are three main steps in the argument and materials presented below. First of all an exploration is made of the relationship between rationality and irrationality in the history of Japanese religions. This relationship may appear in some respects to be a paradoxical one but, however interpreted, its historical and analytical significance is beyond doubt. Second, a brief account is given of the continuing presence of religion in "enchanted" or as one might say, non- demystified forms in contemporary Japan. Some illustrative material from the Chinese culture of Singapore is also adduced for comparative purposes. Third, detailed examples are presented from the context of contemporary Shintō. These might seem to a casual observer to be extremely automatised rituals or even "superstitious" acts. However, as will be explained, such acts may be regarded as internally rational in the sense that they seek to correlate a given human situation with various possibilities of shaping one's own life for the good. The human situation is perceived, at any one time and for any one life, to be partly inherited and partly determined in other ways. It is therefore regarded as somehow given. The following questions then arise. How can the situation be analysed, what can be done about it, and how can life be shaped accordingly? Much religious activity in Japan and other parts of East Asia is devoted to the consideration of such questions and to providing a ritual context for the development of life- shaping decisions such as how to name children, when to start a new business and many other matters of daily importance. In conclusion it is argued that such phenomena are best understood in the context of primal religious systems, and that these are likely to be in evidence for years to come.

This paper has by no means arisen in a vacuum. It is related in various respects to a research project on interpretations of fate and life-shaping decisions in contemporary Japanese religions, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and currently in progress at the University of Marburg.1 In addition, parts of the paper below were presented to an international forum of Japan experts in Helsinki in November 2002, under the title "The paradox of rationality and

1 The project is an example of the way in which a particular subject area in the university, Religionswissenschaft, which is lodged in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Philosophy, works closely together with the Centre for Japanese Studies of the same university. At this point I would also like to mention the helpful cooperation of those who have worked in the framework of this project at various times and various capacities, namely Dr. Monika Schrimpf, Dr. Katja Triplett, Mr. Richard Böhme, M.A. and Ms. Sybille Höhe, M.A., and who have all been helpful to me in various ways. A substantial, multi-authored account of the results of this project is currently in active preparation.

3 irrationality in religion in its relation to modernisation processes in Japan and elsewhere".2 In both of these contexts the question of finding the right terminology has arisen, partly as between different languages and partly as between different academic disciplines.

The title of the wider Marburg project was rather carefully formulated in German some time ago as Schicksalsdeutung und Lebensgestaltung in japanischen Religionen der Gegenwart. It is not easy to find exact equivalents for these expressions in English. Schicksalsdeutung could be translated either as interpreting "fate" or as interpreting "destiny", an option which can easily lead into long discussions about the possible meanings of these two words. Lebensgestaltung is an extremely convenient German term, which means something like the shaping or the constructing of our lives. In the title of this paper, "life-shaping decisions" has been used to refer to approximately the same field, because the German word Gestaltung ("shaping") implies a decisive initiative. The shaping of life does not just happen by itself. Such terminology varies therefore, with subtle nuances, even between English and German. But at the basis of our work in this research project lies common Japanese terminology such as unmei 運命, innen 因縁, kaiun 開運, kitō 祈祷 and many less well-known expressions such as tennen 天然 which will be discussed in the appropriate places. It is very important to be sensitive to the implications of the discourse of religion and ritual in the Japanese context itself, and not to be led astray by the kind of generalised terminology which gets itself established in not a little sociological, theological and journalistic writing. It is presupposed here that direct and extended knowledge of the cultural field is crucial as a basis for responsible theoretical representation. Examples given in the later part of the paper have therefore been drawn from immediately recent fieldwork (October 2002).

If the first step in this account may seem to be rather historical, it is nonetheless necessary. This is because some serious misconceptions about the phasing of Japan's modernisation processes, and in particular about the way in which these are related to religion, are widely current. The question of demystification and rationalisation is or should be a major theme in retrospective reflection on the early modern period of Japanese thought, that is the , and in this respect the author has paid particular attention to the works of Tominaga Nakamoto (1715-1746,

2 The title of this conference-workshop (Helsinki, 11-14 November 2002) was "Japan as a Model for Asian Modernisation", and the conference coordinator was Professor Rein Raud. I am grateful to him and various colleagues present for detailed and helpful discussion of the paper. In particular, as good fortune would have it, a participant from Singapore happened to know the temple practices reported from there and vouched for the accuracy of their description.

4 see further below). And of course the Edo Period also has its intellectual pre-history in earlier periods. Hence it is quite misleading to focus only on the Meiji Period when discussing questions about modernisation. At the same time, processes of demystification cannot be considered in isolation from the recognition of the continuing strength of everyday religious practices in East Asia. In other words the "enchanted" world (to use Max Weber's vocabulary again) continues to exist in some kind of symbiosis with the rationalised, modernised world.

As far as the history is concerned, attention may also be drawn to a more limited problem in the assessment of the way in which modern Japanese studies of religion have developed. This problem, frequently misunderstood, is connected with the word "religion" itself, to which is usually assigned the Japanese equivalent shūkyō 宗教.3 Although both of these terms took on a particular value in the nineteenth century encounter between an invasive western world and a defensive and self-assertive Japanese culture, neither of them is locked entirely into the discourse of that time. Both have an older history and a later history. It is therefore fair to say that the term "religion" and its approximate and most general equivalent shūkyō may be used, at least by specialists in the study of religion, to refer to the various successive and overlapping religious systems of Japanese history. The equivalent term, it may be added, is also used both in general and in academic contexts in Korea and China. This may appear to some readers to be a rather obscure topic, but it bears a fundamental relationship to the way in which modern Japanese history is conceived and also to wider questions about orientalism and occidentalism, the Nihonjinron debate (i.e. about the idea that there is some kind of quintessential "Japaneseness"), and so on.

Religion, rationality and modernisation

Religion, rationality and irrationality

The apparently simple distinction between rationality and irrationality has been related to religious phenomena in many ways, and the complexities which arise may cause some impatience among those whose main interests lie elsewhere. Yet religion, regarded by some as "irrational", is big business in Japan and Taiwan. It is very significant in Korea. It persists

3 For rather different accounts of the way in which academic reflection on "religion" has developed in Japan see Isomura 2002 and Pye 2002 (following earlier statements on the subject).

5 significantly among overseas Chinese, for example in the major settlement of Singapore. It is resurgent in mainland China. At the same time it is widely perceived that in all these places economic values play, or are coming to play, a greater role than political or ideological values. Economic success is based in part on technological success, which in turn is based on science and hence on rationality. The question has often been posed therefore as to whether "religion" has been or is an obstacle, or rather a motor in the processes of modernisation which, far advanced in Japan, are following on with considerable speed on the great continent of China. The days when people asked what needed to be done in order to "encourage development" in Asia are long since past. Nevertheless the ways in which cultural features such as religion are related to the structuring of development and modernisation continue to be not only fascinating but also relevant for policy makers in various quarters. The Chinese élite seems to think so (c.f. Dai, Zhang and Pye 1995).

The matter of the relation between religion, rationality and irrationality is confused for two reasons. First, apologists for various religions have spoken with quite divergent voices about the relation between religion and reason. Some wish to say that religion is itself rational, or at least that their own religion is rational. One of the strands of Buddhist apologetics, for example, emphasizes that , and indeed other aspects of Buddhist thought, are in harmony with modern science. Second, many proponents of , including influential figures such as Suzuki Daisetsu and many later teachers of meditation in the tradition (including its globalised versions), have asserted that Buddhist enlightenment transcends discursive, and hence discriminative reason. These two divergent options are also espoused in the Christian world, which exists in part also in Asia. Thus there are those who seek harmony with reason and at the same time there are those who see the disjunction with natural reason as precisely the point at which "transcendence" or "faith" take on their meaning. In the protestant tradition, especially, interest in "natural theology" with its potential opening to the wider range of human rationality has usually been weak. In both Buddhism and Christianity therefore, rationality can be an important value, but so can irrationality. In fact the same is true for many religious systems.

Looking specifically to Japan, we are sometimes invited to regard Shintō as the common-sense religion of a community living in harmony with nature, as expressed in a leaflet recently published by The Association of Shintō Shrines (Jinja Honchō) entitled Nature, It is Divine. This leaflet commends care for the environment as an important contemporary task based on the "Basic Environment Law" of 1993. The leaflet includes not a few wise words, which could be adopted by any secular rationalist, e.g.:

6 "There is a pessimistic opinion that the human beings are so unwise that they do not realize the critical situation that they are in now, unless a real disaster drives them to the point of the world's end. On the other hand, an optimistic solution says that all the problems will be solved in the near future with development of techno-science. The most important, however, is to fulfil our own duty that was handed down from our ancestors: each one to do one's best, in a given situation, cooperating each other, but not waiting in idleness for the future technological development."4

At the same time, in the presentations of individual shrines, Shintō discourse quickly takes on a poetic and mythical character, referring to beings who in fact existed and beings who may have existed or "are said" to have done this and that in ancient times, for which they should now be honoured. This subtle shift from real life to the life of stories, legends and myths provides much of the charm of Shintō. Questions about reality or even accuracy of reference, which might be thought somehow to be related to rationality, lose their urgency when the main consideration is that the customary ritual should be completed without a step or a sleeve-fold being misplaced.

Looking elsewhere in Japan, the first principle of the Japanese new religion PL Kyōdan (Perfect Liberty Kyōdan), is that "life is art". On this basis the religion is designed to provide a pleasing context for the life of its members, including the provision of a fine golf course at the headquarters. Seen in this way, the question of the rationality, or irrationality, of religion is not really a matter of philosophical or even of sociological importance. It is more a question of style and behaviour, individual preference and choice. Does PL Kyōdan stand for various new religions and new spiritualities in this sense? That is, if we translate "life is art" into "religion is art", can the metaphor be applied more generally? The perspective is adduced here not in the form of an argument that "religion" is so, but to indicate that a very hard and fast categorisation of rationality and irrationality may not always be relevant in religious arrangements or projects.

Disenchantment and modernisation

It is not only religious persons themselves who have taken alternative views about the relation between religion and rationality. It has also troubled sociologists. The idea that modernisation processes could be either hastened or delayed by specific religious orientations and values has been a common-place assumption in the sociology and history of the religions since the

4 Quoted (with the addition of two definite articles) from page 12 of a 15-page leaflet distributed in 2000, but possibly available earlier.

7 appearance of Max Weber's famous writings on the "protestant ethic". Weber himself regarded Asian religions, cultures and societies, as negative examples for his main thesis. They demonstrated, he thought, that religions unlike protestantism would be a hindrance to the development of capitalism, and he sought the reasons for this in various cases from India to Japan. However, on the basis of the more detailed knowledge available today, modernisation in Japan should be regarded rather as a positive example for the same thesis. That is, in Japan we can find a case of relatively early and rapid modernisation assisted by a specific religious value structure analogous to the protestant ethic. This was pointed out in principle in Robert N. Bellah's Tokugawa Religion (1957), which should be regarded as a classic, although strangely enough this extremely important corrective has usually escaped the notice of Weber specialists. Bellah referred in particular to the popular, Neo-Confucian movement known as Shingaku5 based on the teaching of Ishida Baigan (1685-1744). This was current in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, although in Japan today it is only remembered by specialists. Why has the implication of Bellah's argument been overlooked by most sociologists of religion, even though later works by Bellah (e.g. on civil religion) have been quite influential? The reason may be that those who invest time in the academic Weber industry do not wish to hear that he could have been wrong over such a significant matter. Even though the case of Japan could have been adduced in support of his thesis, it would disturb the textbook presentation.

Bellah also drew attention to general features of great importance. In particular he noted the roots of a certain kind of "disenchantment" of the religious world-view (Weber's Entzauberung), which was already in progress as early as the Kamakura Period (1192-1333), notably in connection with Shin Buddhism. As he pointed out, the value of "returning gratitude" or "returning obligation" (hōon), in respect of a grace received, led to an orientation of ethically reliable and practically effective conduct, which in turn fed into systematic this-worldly action.6 In modern times too, this has been regarded as the basis of ethics in Shin Buddhism, as can be seen in the writings of Kiyozawa Manshi (1863-1903). Moreover, the fact that with Shinran Shōnin, the spiritual leader of Shin Buddhism, the distinction between monk and lay was overturned in practice 7 meant that the emphasis on responsive action within "this world"

5 The literal meaning of the term is "heart (or mind) learning". 6 See especially Tokugawa Religion, pp. 70-73. 7 It had already been subverted in principle in early Buddhist writings such as "The Teaching of Vimalakirti", and the value of a lay Buddhist consciousness had been promoted by the influence of Shōtoku Taishi and the commentaries ascribed to him.

8 (genze)8 became a new norm. As in the European Christian Reformation, ushered in most effectively by Luther and Calvin some time later, the present world became the place in which life should be lived, not meritoriously, but in gratitude for salvation received. This went hand in hand with the so-called "disenchantment"9 of the world, the abandonment of the idea that specific spiritual forces are at work in the varied details of daily experience and need to be attended to, provided for, calmed down, and asked for protection and assistance. There is only one fundamental spiritual force, be it God or Amida Buddha, and the everyday world is therefore available for rational exploration and as a field for the performance of duties. While Pure Land, and True Pure Land (Shin) Buddhism were based on the concept of a transcendent "other power" (tariki), their complementary partner Zen Buddhism was based on "own power" (jiriki). Interestingly enough, this had a similar effect as far as the disenchantment process was concerned. This is because many of the more or less magical practices, which presuppose "mediation" between a transcendental world and the experience of believers, were simply shaken off as irrelevant. One's own buddha-nature should be perceived directly, the Zen Buddhists taught, either by sitting in meditation, that is, carrying out (seated meditation) as did the Buddha himself under the bodhi tree, or by the achievement of satori through a process of mental training and self-transcendence. These two emphases correspond to the Sōtō and Rinzai schools respectively. Thus, what is known as "Kamakura Buddhism" had a massive impact on the long-term development of Japanese attitudes towards life in "this world". Even 's Buddhism in some ways took part in this shift, although it is much more paradoxical. On the one hand it has remained in touch with the widespread practice of astrological divination and the acquisition of this-worldly benefits. Moreover the largest denomination, Nichiren-shū, maintains the monastic or priestly structure. On the other hand the tradition of Nichiren has been adopted in various ways by decisively lay movements which have been very influential in the twentieth century, notably the Reiyūkai, the Risshō Kōseikai and the Sōka Gakkai. All of these new, lay movements have found ways of digesting some elements which to others seem to be "irrational" within a broader range of activities located within the social life of modern Japan. Taking an overall view, Japanese Buddhism presents a spectrum of religious styles. Some

8 Pronounced gense in modern Japanese but still occurring as genze in the expression genzeriyaku meaning this-worldly benefits. 9 Bellah’s application of Weber’s concept Entzauberung to developments in the history of Japanese religions is broadly followed here.

9 promote "disenchantment" while others leave complex, diffuse and mysterious patterns of symbolism and ritual more or less as they have been for centuries, - or reinvent them.

The demythologisation of karma

Returning to the pre-modern or early modern period, much has been made of the "way" of the samurai, known in Japanese as bushidō. There has no doubt been a certain amount of retrospective construction here. However the Hagakure, which contains the sayings of Yamamoto Tsunemoto, a loyal samurai retainer who ended up in retirement in a small , gives us some interesting indications.10 One of these thoughts shall be quoted here since it provides succinct evidence of the emptying out, or demythologisation of traditional religious, narrative concepts. Talking of karma, and the "way" to be followed, he said (so it is reported): "You cannot tell whether a person is good or bad on the basis of the ups and downs of fortune. Ups and downs of fortune are matters of heavenly determination. But good and bad actions arise in one's way of life. Ups and downs of fortune are only mentioned in this connection for the sake of moral training. "11

We see here, twice, the denial of the idea that the evidences of good or bad fortune might be thought to give an indication of whether people are inwardly good or bad. There is no literal connection between them. Any such idea, says Yamamoto, does not operate literally and is only taught, narratively, to give people a scare and encourage them to enter the good way. The reality is that good and bad fortune are matters of fate. They just come as they come, being determined by heaven (ten).12 Man's moral action, on the other hand, is his own decision and responsibility. Now this is a very secularised view of Buddhist thought. In fact, it is doubtful whether there is any Buddhist thought left here at all. Good and bad fortune are determined externally, as matters of heavenly determination or, in English "fate". Good and bad actions on the other hand are determined internally, by each individual person, in the course of life. The "course of life" here

10 It is also referred to by Bellah in the context of a passage on bushidō (Tokugawa Religion pp. 90ff.). 11 Original text in Nihon no shisō Vol.9, p. 268. The translated selections of the Hagakure by William Scott Wilson provide a good introduction to this text (Yamamoto 1979). However the translation given above differs somewhat. For example the term "retribution" has been avoided, which is often used in rather general discussions of karma. Its frequent use seems to be due to the unduly great influence of Max Weber in this connection, as for example in Robert Kisala’s study of karma in two modern Japanese new religions (Kisala 1994). 12 The term tennen 天然 may be contrasted with the much more common expression shizen 自然, meaning "nature".

10 is another expression for "one's way of life" used in the quotation above for the widely current expression hito no michi 人の道, which of course taken by itself in a more traditional, literal and commanding translation would be "The Way of Man". But here we are interested in the precise juxtaposition between tennen and hito no michi, which gives a clue for understanding what to some may seem like irrationality in the modern religious patterns of East Asia. Taking personal responsibility for one's own actions may seem to be quite modern. At the same time, the assumption that good and bad fortune are matters of heavenly determination provides the very basis of the widespread divination practices devoted to their elucidation. My fate is my fate, but at least I can try to find out what exactly my fate is, and then take ancillary action to moderate it or confirm the tendencies perceived. That is then up to the action taken by the individual in his or her own life. So the rationality is coherent here. What is left aside in the above quotation, and I would argue, by millions more in East Asia, is irrational speculation about any interconnections with other lives (in the sense of other existences) whether past or future.

In countries dominated by Buddhism, such as Thailand, the hope of an improvement of one's lot in future lives is, or used to be, more influential than for example in Japan. It led to the use of spare money to finance -making ceremonies, rather than, as outsiders disappointedly commented, to provide investment capital for development. This so-called "problem" has not applied in Japan for centuries, for the simple reason that the Indian Buddhist idea of karmic rewards and punishments, which implies a narrative sequence of many lives, was more or less abandoned in favour of the dominant notions of kinship descent and the veneration of ancestors. This shift appears to have taken place in China during the course of the adoption of Buddhism, consequently affecting the whole of East Asia. The simple reason for this is that the idea of a sequence of existences was not able to displace the system of ancestor veneration. At the same time it was the relative subtlety of Mahayana Buddhism which permitted ancestor veneration to be foregrounded. The conceptual subversion of narrative had been an inherent element in the basic thought patterns of Mahayana Buddhism as already formulated in India. Narrative, of which there was plenty, was assigned to the realm of skilful means, provisional teaching devices.13 Transferred to China, this had the effect of a practical shift in the patterns of Buddhist thought, for the idea of was not taken so seriously as to compete with ancestor

13 The term "skilful means" is more complicated, more dialectical and dynamic, than the phrase "teaching devices" might suggest (c.f. my book Skilful Means. A Concept in Mahayana Buddhism, London, 1978, which is shortly to be reprinted by Routledge, London).

11 veneration. The world-view is different therefore. For the individual it is the current life which is of most interest. Fate in this current life is in itself a given state of affairs or tendencies, to be analysed, welcomed, averted or adjusted. Behaviour is my behaviour, a matter of individual responsibility, also to be carried through in this current life. Stories about cause and effect on the other hand are just that: stories, narratives, edifying discourses. Karma, and narratives about past and future lives have therefore long been demythologised, - or perhaps more accurately put, regarded as mythology. Its place is to be found for example in the engi of the various temples, which as a genre are parallel to the yurai of Shintō shrines, - as charming, but no more real, than stories of the . What is left is the hard rock of one's own personal situation: my fate, and at the same time the challenge to take responsibility for one's individual behaviour in the world, now, indeed one's own construction of the world, entering into the project of a new family, a new business, and so on.

Modernisation as an intellectual shift

The history of Japanese thought, including religious thought, is broader and more complex than is often realized. Since Bellah's study was published in 1957 much more has been learned about "rationalisation" processes during Japan's early modern period, before the massive opening to the western powers which took place in the nineteenth century. It is no longer the frenzied interactions with western culture and science in the nineteenth century which explain Japanese development, but the preceding developments in both thought and technology which prepared the way for the rapid response which eventually took place. Various aspects of the fascinating early history of Japanese technological development have been studied by Erich Pauer (e.g. 1987). We are concerned here however with other aspects of intellectual history, and here it has become clear that a kind of "Enlightenment" (Aufklärung) occurred as an internal feature of the Japanese intellectual developments in the eighteenth century. The significance of the organizing concepts of Neo-Confucianism, namely the twin ideas that things have their ki ("energy") and their ri ("inner logic"), has been widely recognized as providing a basis for "the investigation of things", as it is called in the then widely studied Chinese booklet The Great Learning (Daigaku 大学). But the Japanese thinkers of the time in many ways escape the summary labels such as "Neo-Confucianism". Ogyū Sorai, for example, was not just the representative of a school such as the Kogaku ("Ancient Learning"), but rather a thinker who attended widely to the major

12 political and economic questions of his day.14 As regards religion, the writings of Tominaga Nakamoto (1715-1746) are a dramatic case of the same thing. His shorter writing Okina no fumi 翁の文, contains what can be identified as "Confucian" ethics - not much more than the five relations plus makoto ("sincerity") - but that does not make him a "Neo-Confucian" as he has sometimes been designated. On the contrary, he was a free thinker who critically assessed the religions known to him, that is, Confucianism and Shintō, and in particular Buddhism, which he treated at length in his Shutsujō kōgo 出定後語.15 His work is marked by critical freedom, historical reflexivity, and dramatic polemical statements about the way in which religious traditions are developed as a kind of power play by succeeding generations. How could he achieve this? There is a sociological aspect, which is not irrelevant, namely that he was able to live independently in Ōsaka, being the son of a successful manufacturer of soya sauce. Ōsaka in the first half of the eighteenth century was a major trading and financial centre, which being rather like the bourgeois centres of contemporary Europe, the trading cities of the Netherlands or northern Germany, had no heavy authoritative or ideological focus. Tominaga himself was not beholden to any religious institution, and he was quite aware of this himself. Somewhat later, Motoori Norinaga, usually and indeed not unjustly labelled as the leading figure of the "National Learning" (kokugaku) school, also had an extremely sophisticated relationship to the past, comparable in some ways to the subtle modernity of the European Romantics. Motoori has been regarded as an inspiration to the world of Shintō, and so might be thought to have contributed to the maintenance of an enchanted world. But his work is ambiguous. His reassertion of Japanese sources such as the is double-edged. It was not the mere fundamentalism which later Shintoists have not infrequently displayed. Rather, it was a new construction of the past based on significant distance, a construction which could only be mounted by the application of critical tools. It is this combination which gives his work such a modern quality.16

14 A valuable introduction is available in J.R. McEwan’s The Political Writings of Ogyū Sorai (London, 1962). 15 Both of these works were translated by the present author in Tominaga Nakamoto, Emerging from Meditation (London, 1990). The work contains a longer discussion of Tominaga’s significance, which has also been treated in various articles. 16 The best general survey of all of these intellectual developments, with translated extracts, remains the valuable Sources of Japanese Tradition, jointly edited by R. Tsunoda, W.Th. de Bary, and D. Keene (New York and London, 1958), of which (I understand) a new revised edition is forthcoming.

13 All of these thinkers owed a great deal to the fact that the Chinese intellectual tradition, their major source and still their partial horizon, had itself become extremely complex. But they were also energetic, independent thinkers in their own right, creating an increasingly powerful intellectual space for the formation and presentation of new ideas. In fact a certain dynamism appears to have been derived from the fact that, because of their awareness of not being Chinese, the idea of historical and geographical relativism could easily emerge, leading to sustained reflection on the particularities. The reason for mentioning this here, without attempting to go into further details, is to point out the importance of intellectual history for understanding modernisation processes. We have seen that in the Japanese case, a very early impetus to "modernisation" was provided by attitudinal shifts within the context of religious Buddhism. But on top of this came an intellectual shift, which, by means of a radical and fearless exploration of "things", from economics to botany and from religion to anatomy, also contributed to a desacralisation or disenchantment process. In sum therefore, some relatively new perceptions in the history of Japanese thought and the sociology of knowledge should also be taken into account in the consideration of our topic. A question which still remains to be answered, is whether there were incipient parallels to the Tokugawa "enlightenment" in the other cultures on the Chinese "periphery", namely Korea and Vietnam. This might be expected if the "distance" enabling reflection was sufficient at certain times, but not expected if the immediate embrace of Chinese political and cultural norms was too tight. Further research is required in this regard.

Persisting enchantment

Persisting enchantment in Singapore

The rapid development of the societies and economies of East Asia has thrown up the question of the relation between religion, rationalisation and economic development in new ways. Some religious movements have undoubtedly contributed to modernisation processes, as can be seen not only in Japan but also in China, where the Taiping rebels spoke out against footbinding, and Korea, where Won Buddhists in particular have provided a rationalized version of Buddhism which can easily be harmonized with lay pursuits. 17 On the other hand, many traditional

17 For an introductory account of Won Buddhism by a non-member, see my article "Won Buddhism as a Korean new religion", Numen 49, 2 (2002), pp. 113-141.

14 patterns of religious thought and behaviour not only persist in East Asia but are even enjoying a new period of prosperity. Indeed, what might be called "non-disenchanted" forms of religion are doing very well, right into the twenty-first century.

On a recent visit to Singapore (October 2002) I spent some time observing the visitors to the old Temple in Waterloo Street, parallel to Bencoolen Street. The low, swinging roofs of this highly decorated temple are almost lost among the modern blocks of flats and businesses. Indeed the huge skyscrapers of contemporary Singapore are cathedrals to the success of investor capitalism supported by the ancient Confucian virtues of diligence and thrift. But these virtues do not just run by themselves. Diligence today partly takes the form of technological dedication, itself backed by modern science. Thrift, which enables investment, is accompanied by consumerism, without which investment brings few returns. This whole complex is evidently still growing in Singapore, despite the pricking of the Asian bubble a few years ago and the consequent complaints of investors. No time is being lost just now, for example, in demolishing the traditional, and rather large Muslim cemetery known as Perkuburan Islam Bidadari18 to make way for further residential developments. Remaining bones are being packed into small boxes for reburial elsewhere. The pressure for this transfer arises because of recently created facts regarding the infrastructure. The traditional cemetery just happens to be located near a major highway interchange! Apparently the "Christian" cemetery, which is almost entirely Chinese, will be spared for the time being. This may be because cremation has led to a much more intensive use of space than is possible with Muslim burials.

Although Chinese Christians are quite numerous in Singapore, the majority of the population prefer traditional Chinese belief systems. Hence the numerous visitors to the Guanyin temple are not tourists, though these are also seen, but practitioners. On a Sunday the place is so crowded that it is hardly possible for tourists to get in at all. The ritual has two main features. First a bundle of burning incense sticks is offered, held upwards from the forehead, away from the temple itself towards "heaven" (tiān 天). In fact the people appear to be praying towards tall blocks of shops and flats. But there is a small patch of sky in between, and that counts as "heaven". Then they turn inwards towards the temple and make the same gesture towards

18 Bidadari Muslim Cemetery. The remains were formally exhumed during the course of 2002 and removed to a new location known as Choa Chu Kang Muslim Cemetery, the process being supervised by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Majlis Ugama Islam Singapore: MUIS) for which a huge new headquarter is just now being built on Bencoolen Street. The form "ugama" is correct in this context, though agama is in more general use for "religion" or "religious" (depending on sentence position).

15 Guanyin, often referred to in English (not inappropriately) as the Buddhist goddess of mercy. The second stage of ritual, for those who proceed towards the centre of the temple building, is the identification of destiny and the of prayers accordingly. Not all visitors perform this, but many do. There is room for about thirty people at any one time to take up position on a central carpet for this purpose. A box of divination rods is collected from the attendant, the shoes are removed, and a kneeling position is adopted. The box is shaken about vigorously until one of the sticks protrudes. The number on the stick then indicates to the attendant which fortune slip is the correct one for that particular person. In addition, two bean shaped divining beads are dropped to the floor, the position in which they fall also indicating current fortune. Since a considerable number of persons are performing these actions at the same time, the hall is characterised by an intense bustle of coming in, kneeling down, getting up, and above all the rattling of the divination sticks. Although I have often seen such divination sticks in use, for example in Japan at many Shintō shrines and Buddhist temples, and also in Chinese temples in Taiwan and Malaysia, I have never before heard such an intense rattling in any one place. The visitors just have time to say their prayers, with eyes closed and bowing their foreheads to the ground several times, but beyond that they are in a hurry to rejoin the activities of the great city outside. Almost next to the Guanyin temple is an Indian temple to Sri Krishna(n), and a steady stream of Chinese passers-by purchase incense to offer up before this temple too. This is a rather striking phenomenon since it means that religious practices of this kind are not ethnically restricted. On the other hand, Chinese persons do not normally go inside the Sri Krishna(n) temple, and Singaporeans of Indian descent are not to be seen inside the Guanyin temple. Since the persons burning incense outside the Sri Krishna temple apparently have nothing to with Indian traditions, this suggests that anybody who could buy a plot of land in Singapore and set up something like a temple would be able to sell incense to Chinese people passing by, businessmen and businesswomen, students, housewives, tradespeople and others! The desire to burn a few sticks of incense in front of anything suitable is also evidenced at the cemetery already mentioned, at which the several chapels for memorial services look like sanitized protestant chapels (without a pulpit) while the columbaria, where the very numerous urns are housed with their inscriptions, photographs and flowers, are provided with incense burning basins. Returning to downtown Singapore, those with a little more leisure might follow up their temple divination and prayer ritual with a visit to Fortune House, a large, tall block of shops a little further down the street, where all kinds of astrological and quasi-medicinal services are on

16 offer. The lower floors have shops with a vast array of religious accessories, in which Guanyin and Milofo19 are prominent. The upper floors continue this provision and add such benefits as palmistry, foot massage, vegetarian food and beauty treatment, in short everything needed to improve one's destiny and lengthen one's life.

Now all these services are clearly a cultural extension to the specific activities carried out in the temple. But how does it all fit with a scientific or rational world-view? The ruling criteria are not only profit for the operators, but also profit, success and well-being for the customers. Such values cradle systems of behaviour governed by their own internal rationality, without which they would not function. These and similar phenomena will be familiar to all who have lived or travelled in East Asia. Nevertheless a puzzle might seem to remain about the relation between the rationalising effects of religion referred to at the outset and the apparently irrational forms of religion, which are easy to document in the field even today. We should not forget, of course, that this apparent puzzle is not a problem for the practitioner, but only for the intellectual observer seeking to develop a theoretical understanding of religious systems.20

In mainland China there is a double reaction to the persistence of enchantment. On the one hand there is increasing concern about the potentially destabilizing effects of active religious movements and there is therefore a very clear government policy on the regulation of religion. This policy, incidentally, is not just an example of hardline communist rule. Rather, it is a continuation of such models of governmental policies towards religious plurality which have existed for centuries. On the other hand the state has an interest in discovering the motors of economic action. Could these even lie in religion, or some forms of religion? Such is the speculation, which nowadays makes Weber a name to mention along with or even instead of Marx (c.f. Zhuo Xinping 1995). The third great model in the sociology of religions, that of Durkheim, seems to be of less interest in China. This may be because the idea of religion as what might be called the "glue" which knits society together, in this case particularly in the form of ancestor veneration, is either not politically promoted, as in mainland China, or is taken for granted, as in the other territories where there is a significant population of Chinese people. But none of these great theories really gets into the dynamics of religious action between divination and life-shaping.

19 Miroku in Japanese, the Buddha of the future who in his smiling corpulent form has become a god of good fortune. 20 I.e. in the perspective of the historical and comparative study of religions, or Religionswissenschaft, which is the perspective of the present author.

17 Persisting enchantment in Japan

The situation in Japan is extremely complex in this regard. While some forms of religion clearly promote modernisation and rationalisation processes in various areas of life, others offer solutions to individual and family problems which may at least seem to observers to be more or less arbitrary, and in that sense non-rational. These are often based on an assessment of one's current life situation, which is worked out by the various techniques of divination, which are widely current all over East Asia. Such techniques range from the simple drawing of a fortune ticket or fortune-slip (o-mikuji 御籤)21 at a Shintō shrine or even at Buddhist temples, to the employment of a specialist in astrology, calendars, horoscopes, palmistry or onomancy (see further below). A fortune-slip can cost as little as 100 Yen while special services can cost as much as 30,000 Yen. Some of the major denominations of Buddhism, notably Shingon and Buddhism and to a lesser extent Jōdo and , allow plenty of space for an "enchanted" view of the world, at least on the part of ordinary temple visitors. Here too, fortune slips may be drawn, votive tablets sponsored, formal prayers requested for various kinds of protection and positive developments in this world for oneself, one's family or one's business. Shin Buddhism, on the other hand, is strictly opposed to such attitudes and practices. The main Zen traditions (Sōtō, Rinzai and Ōbaku) tolerate them but do not actively encourage them very much. Admittedly the cult of Kannon-sama (in Chinese Guanyin, as already mentioned) is supported in the context of many of the larger Zen temples but usually in a separate hall (a Kannondō) or by means of an outside statue or statues. Zen temples are also found in the pilgrimage circuits, which encourage the operational techniques of merit-making and praying for this-worldly benefits (genzeriyaku). In the Chichibu circuit of 34 temples dedicated to Kannon-sama for example, 31 of the temples belong to Zen Buddhist denominations (20 to Sōtō-shū and 11 to Rinzai-shū).22 Shin Buddhist temples, by contrast, do not participate in these pilgrimage circuits.

It is difficult to generalise about whether the newer religions promote "enchantment" or not. Some tend to encourage "disenchantment", though without using the term, and instead to

21 Since the second character used here is rather difficult and does not occur in standardised educational lists it is often replaced by the phonetic hiragana only, but the character is also sometimes seen. 22 The remaining three belong to . The total of thirty-four arises, though more commonly thirty-three holy places of Kannon-sama are counted, because the Chichibu pilgrimage is the third of three particularly famous ones which taken together add up to one hundred temples.

18 promote individual faith (shinkō 信仰) or "spirituality" (reisei 霊性) in various forms.23 Others however, such as Agonshū, seem to be competing with the more "esoteric" forms of Buddhism. In general however it may be said that the inner faith of the individual believer and the readiness to carry out certain practices conscientiously, for self-development, are more important in the new religions. This attitude in turn will lead to good results, it is widely thought. There is some overlapping between membership in new religions and participation in the wider range of religious practices, but there is evidence that this varies not only from religion to religion, but also from family to family and from person to person. In the case of the Sōka Gakkai, it may be argued that the chanting of the daimoku 題目 (the formula based on the title of the Lotus ) with the expectation that it will bring about recognisable benefits in this life puts this (very large) group into the realm of "enchanted" religion, even though in many respects the teaching of the Sōka Gakkai proposes rationalisations, for example (by contrast with Shintō) the demystification of ethnicity. In the case of Tenrikyō the spirituality is one of faith and guidance and is therefore, broadly speaking, demystified. At the same time an amulet is available specifically for Tenrikyō believers, and there is evidence that some members are interested in divination and related matters beyond the structured patterns of Tenrikyō itself.24

Probably it is the use of divination techniques which create the impression of arbitrariness in the minds of many observers of religions in Japan. As will be seen below however, the move towards life-shaping decisions, which are partly taken on that basis, is not wholly arbitrary. There is an internal rationality which links what is presumed to be a given state of affairs, however elucidated, and the ritual accompaniment to practical decisions in actual life. Moreover the whole complex of religious action relating to daily concerns must be taken into account in any analysis. Quite apart from "fate" or "fortune", how is divine protection for the future understood to work? And how are other actions such as praying for success in examinations by means of a votive tablet () thought to assist in getting results? Not all of these subjects can be explored here, but two particular cases will now be taken up in a little detail.

23 Note that the Japanese term reisei, which has come into rather wide use lately, leads to some difficulties when it comes to the systematic study of religions. 24 This is currently being documented in the context of the research project mentioned earlier.

19 Life-shaping decisions in Japan

Shintō in the context of Japan's primal religious system

It is at Shintō shrines that the juxtaposition of apparently arbitrary ritual and its individualised concern about real life can most easily be observed.25 Indeed it is often remarked upon, even by casual visitors who are amused by the large numbers of fortune-telling slips (o-mikuji) which are read every day. But what is the relationship between the ritual and the shaping of one's own life? What is the link between fortune-telling and deciding what to do? How does the wish for divine protection find expression in the real world? These points will be illustrated below with the very particular examples of name-giving and traffic safety. As described here, both of these examples are set in the context of Shintō, but it should be noted that this connection is not exclusive. Similar practices may be found elsewhere and they belong therefore to the wider range of the primal religious system in contemporary Japan.

Notwithstanding the fact that many Japanese people declare themselves to be "not religious" (which is partly a terminological question) a majority of the population visits Shintō shrines for one reason or another at various times in the course of a year. Among those who simply refuse to do so at any time, only a few are anti-religious; there are more who have their own religious grounds for this stance. For the majority however it is not at all a question of belonging to a religious community, which has such clear obligations and beliefs that they could be controversial, even though The Association of Shintō Shrines tries to promote a clear picture of loyalty to local and national shrines. For most people the relationship consists rather in a long, drawn-out series of loosely connected shrine visits, sometimes on notable occasions in life and sometimes when leisure and travel conspire to bring it about. On such occasions ritual actions are very often undertaken, with varying degrees of seriousness and financial investment, which in some way aid reflection on one's life situation and in the formulation of resolve for its future shaping.

25 What follows is based not only on many years of observation but in particular on a number of visits to shrines in various parts of Japan made by the writer in October 2002, including conversations with shrine visitors, shrine servants and shrine officials up to the highest level of "high priest" (gūji 宮司). Shrines visited included: Kitano Tenmangū (Kyōto), Usa Jingū (Ōita-, Kyūshū), Shōin Jinja (Hagi, Yamaguchi-ken), Sumiyoshi Jinja (Hagi, Yamaguchi-ken), Aso Jinja (Kumamoto-ken, Kyūshū), Kompira-Taisha (Kagawa-ken, Shikoku), Sumiyoshi Taisha (Ōsaka), Chichibu Jinja (Saitama-ken), Yahiko Jinja (Niigata-ken) and Tōkyō Daijingū (Tōkyō).

20 As far as the reading of one's destiny is concerned the two most important sources are the fortune-slips (o-mikuji) already mentioned above, and the almanac. Fortune-slips may be drawn in various ways. Shaking numbered sticks, as in China, is one method, but the slips may also be acquired on the basis of one's blood group or year of birth. However it is not enough merely to test one's fortune in this way. A wide variety of amulets is also on sale, which may be carried on the body or taken home to be placed on the Shintō-style house-altar. A family group with a particular concern may spend more money by paying for the performance of rituals known as o- (purification) or kitō (prayer). These are usually carried out within the shrine building itself, that is, within the or "worship hall" which stands to the front. Another option is the offering of a votive tablet (ema), at the appropriate stand in the shrine grounds, bearing the prayer or matter of concern. All of these actions are intended to secure the future, ward off dangers, and encourage successes. The relationship between offering votive tablets for success in a love relationship and bringing about a good marriage (enmusubi), which is very common (c.f. frontispiece illustration), is rather easy to understand in that the act itself focuses the intention subjectively. The intended partner, or someone who knows him or her, might even happen to see the inscription on the votive tablet itself, which is often quite explicit. An aspect which often draws attention is that fortune-telling and life-shaping rituals are not infrequently directed towards academic success, which in itself might be thought to be dependent on scientifically based knowledge. Another common theme is success in business, which (leaving aside the more accidental ways of becoming rich) is usually considered to be dependent on rational economic procedures. Thus the paradox of the relationship between the apparently irrational and the apparently rational is lived out over and over again.

Name-giving

The Association of Shintō Shrines encourages a custom whereby the name of a new-born baby is displayed on a paper affixed to the house shrine on the seventh day after birth.26 The paper or wooden amulet of the kami, acquired at the local shrine, is normally displayed on the house shrine. The civil registration of a name is required within fourteen days, but the seventh day (with variations acceptable depending on circumstances) is regarded as a time by which a safe

26 The details are set out in a recent pamphlet entitled Jinsei no matsuri (Ujiko no shiori 42), dated as Heisei 9 (1997).

21 birth can be viewed as having taken place. To the right of the paper, which is called a meimeisho 命名書, are shown the names of the parents, in the centre is the name of the child, and to the left is the date of birth. In this way the birth and identity of the new member of the family are reported to the local divinity (kami) to whom a prayer is addressed for its health and welfare. No statistics are available about how widespread this custom is. On the other hand the importance of choosing an appropriate name is widely presupposed, as is the method of doing so. The family name of the child, such as Yamamoto, Morioka or Suzuki, is determined through the event of birth into that family (except in cases of adoption), and plays an important part in the decision about the personal name. The latter is selected in such a way as to maximise the hopes and wishes of the parents but also in order to moderate or reinforce the strength of what is taken to be a predetermined destiny. In this selection the number of strokes used to write the characters for the name plays an important role, that is, not only the number of strokes used in the new name, but also the way in which these combine with the number of strokes already predetermined in the family name. Since this calculation is not very simple and since the number of births in a nuclear family is so small it is considered advisable to take advice from a more experienced person, grandparents or go-betweens, or someone who serves at a Shintō shrine in the neighbourhood.

How then is the personal name arrived at? The mechanism lies in the combination of the number of strokes required to write the various characters together with the meanings and various possible pronunciations associated with them. If the question is posed at a shrine the responsible personnel will consult an almanac in which not only horoscopes and calendars can be consulted but also the significance of the various characters which can be used in names, including all the usual ones and some extra ones with extra pronunciations. A common source of such almanacs is the Takashima Ekidansho 高島易断所, which publishes such books yearly as a business for a large number of shrines and temples, for which they can be customised with particular symbols on the cover. The literal meaning of the word ekidansho 易断所 is "fortune determining office". This very well known ekidansho is owned by a company called Jingūkan ("Jingū office") which however, despite the element Jingū in its name, does not stand in any formal relationship to Ise Shrine (Ise Jingū)27 or to The Association of Shintō Shrines. The almanacs from Takashima Ekidansho are in very widespread use all over Japan. In the "deluxe" edition there is a lengthy section which explains everything about the judicious choice of names.

27 Ise Jingū is sometimes just called Jingū for short.

22 It will hardly be necessary here to explain that the number of strokes used in writing Chinese characters is fixed almost without exception. The family name therefore has a certain number of strokes for each character, and in the ensemble. The interesting point in the present context is that this determination, being simply a fact of life, is taken as being symbolic of the determination of the human situation in general. On the other hand the number of strokes in the characters used to write the personal name, about which a decision is taken with every new birth, is not yet determined. This therefore is symbolic of the openness of the human situation. The overall identity of an individual arises through the combination of the determined and the not yet determined. Thus on balance, if good advice is given, it is possible to counteract negative aspects by emphasising positive aspects. The intention to do this is ritually enacted through the process of deciding upon the name.

Incidentally, but tellingly, this understanding explains why in extreme circumstances, when life runs badly, the decision might be taken to adopt a new name. Such a decision empowers a new initiative in life with symbolic force. A person deciding to do this, for example because of continual failure in examinations or other dissatisfaction with personal life, would take advice and select a new name with the right number of strokes to achieve a combination with a different import. This very act has the effect of focusing the individual's attention on particular aspirations and helps to bring about their realisation, possibly.

Although this intriguing subject can become very complicated, which is why the experts are called in, a few examples will be given to show how it works out in detail. But what follows is simplified and should not be used for attempting to solve problems in real life! The first point to notice is that the number of characters (and we are usually talking about Chinese characters here) is very often four, as in the following example drawn from an almanac:

鈴木宏明

鈴木 is the family name, and is read Suzuki.

宏明 is the given name, and is read Hiroaki.

However the number of characters in the family name might be only one, or it might be three. Two is the most usual. The number of characters in the personal name is also most frequently two, as in the example, but it could also be one or three. Thus the total number of characters can vary from two (very rare) to six (also very rare). The meaning of the characters selected plays a certain role. For example, hiro means broad or expansive, while aki means bright. These are not exactly "words" in the sense that they could occur as such in a sentence, but they are elements in well-known "words" such as hiroi or akiraka, with the same meanings. But as will be seen

23 lower down, it is crucial to note that hiro here is written with 宏and not with 広 (which occurs for example in Hiroshima). Of course, in English too, if a girl is called "Patience", one can imagine that a virtue is being ascribed to her, at least in hope. The same would apply to the Japanese name "Shizuka", meaning "quietness". Popular values in Japanese names are "sincerity" (shin or makoto), "trust" (nobu, as in Nobumi) or "flourish" (shige as in Shigeko or Shigeru). But when the names are written in characters, a value is also ascribed to the number of strokes. Thus hiro has seven strokes, and characters with seven strokes (whatever their individual meaning) are thought to symbolise a very positive value, namely positive success in the achievement of goals. This might sound very simple, but success in the direction of wealth and health (with five strokes) would be a different nuance. The character for aki is written with eight strokes. Not surprisingly eight strokes are also thought to be very good, and imply success due to ability. Not only that, the combination of fifteen strokes is also auspicious. It might seem that all we need to do is look up characters in the list, which have a nice meaning and a lucky number of strokes, but it is not quite so easy as that. The reason is that the characters of the family name are already there, and they too have their number of strokes with consequent implications. The of Suzuki, with its thirteen strokes, is good, but the ki with its four strokes is not so good at all. Fortunately for all the people called Suzuki the total of seventeen is regarded as an auspicious number. But what can be done about the negative connotation of the four strokes used to write ki, which by the way (for rationalists) has the perfectly harmless meaning of "tree"? The answer lies in the additive combination of the various characters. This works out as follows.

There is a simple Chinese-derived cosmology, which is applied metaphorically to various subjects, flower arrangement for example, which ranges hierarchically as follows:

Heaven 天

Humankind 人

Earth 地

"Humankind" is put here for what used to be referred to as "man", but in view of the politically advanced culture in which this paper is written the term humankind is greatly preferred. As far as the current topic is concerned it means human beings, together or individually. These levels are assigned to the name as follows:

Heaven 天 鈴 + 木

Humankind 人 木 + 宏

Earth 地 宏 + 明

24 The stroke number of the characters in the family name, combining as "heaven", is thirteen plus four, which makes seventeen: good. The strokes for the personal name, combining as "earth", are five plus eight, which makes thirteen: also good. "Humankind" combines the last and the first character from each name respectively and provides a total of eleven strokes. This symbolises the fresh shoots of the bright season of spring, and hence is extremely good. In this way, the choice of the right character for hiro counterbalances the tricky influence of ki, and we see that on balance Suzuki Hiroaki has a very good name. At the same time it could have been another name with different implications. Incidentally, this procedure explains why certain Chinese characters seem to have more readings than they would normally need and also why the "name characters" could not be dispensed with. All these characters and ways of reading them are needed so that satisfactory combinations can be worked out.

Since there seems to be so much at stake for the whole of life in the definition of hopes and aspirations it seems to many to make good sense to get a symbolically satisfactory combination, by taking advice, and then to report this to the local kami before having it legally registered. The frequently noted "first shrine visit" follows shortly thereafter, but perhaps the naming ritual is more important. Notice above all that it combines what is given with what is open. It is a matter of fact that much is determined through the very "accident" of birth. It seems important therefore to elucidate, if only symbolically, what this given starting point implies. This is the part which is determined by heaven, as in the expression tennen, which was explained earlier. The open question is what can be decided from below, from "earth", within the range of possibilities. The combination of these two as "humankind" provides the delicate hinge which links the new possibilities with what is already determined. Here some expertise is called for.

Traffic safety and good behaviour

The second main example here is taken from a much later stage in life, a time when somebody has acquired a driving licence or a new car, or is even professionally engaged as a taxi driver. While the possibility that some days may be good for journeys and others inauspicious may easily be encountered on a fortune-slip, the appropriate ritual action to avoid danger of that kind is to buy an amulet providing "safety in traffic" (kōtsū anzen 交通安全). However one can also arrange to have prayers said specifically for traffic safety or even to have one's car or other vehicle "purified" (for want of a better word) by a Shintō priest.

The practice of having one's car "purified" by a professional is widespread and can be carried out not only at major Shintō shrines but also in some other places such as the Shingon Buddhist

25 temple popularly known as Kawasaki Daishi. The practice is therefore located at the level of "primal" religion, is not linked to any kind of doctrine which is limited only to Shintō, and is widely understood. Nevertheless at large Shintō shrines such as Tsurugaoka Hachimangū at Kamakura, Fushimi Inari Shrine near Kyōto, or Yahiko Jinja in , it is performed as a matter of course, on a drive-in basis. An appropriate fee is charged, since it takes up the facilities of the shrine and the time and skill of the officiant. Superficially the most obvious features of the ritual are first the purification of the vehicle, which may be performed by the priest with a wand of white paper slips in one action before it, or even done all around the car with the various doors open, and second the receipt of an amulet for safety in traffic. So what kind of rationality is involved here, if any?

Is this an automatic prayer for traffic safety, ensured by the mere payment of a fee? The drivers and the vehicles are certainly "purified" with the priest's ritual wand made of many white paper slips. This ritual is referred to as o-harae お祓え. Moreover "safety in traffic" is certainly the summary statement of the prayer which is made to the divinity (kami). It does not matter much, evidently, which kami it is, provided that the shrine provides this particular service. So it might seem at first sight that the mere payment of a fee and performance of a ritual by a specialist is expected to produce traffic safety. However this is a good example of how a short description along the lines of ritual automatism should be avoided. In no way is it suggested that it does not matter how one drives. On the contrary. Immediately below may be found an example of a text, a kind of certificate, provided in the envelope in which the amulet is handed over to the driver after the ritual of o-harae. It will be seen that the resolve on the part of the driver to drive safely receives even greater prominence than the promise of protection itself. The following text was dispensed at Yahiko Shrine in October 2002:

In the presence of Yahiko Shrine

While praying for safety in traffic you have also promised to observe the traffic regulations and to drive safely. As we believe that the great kami-sama will watch over your driving by day and by night, and provide protection, so we hope that as you have promised to the great kami-sama you will always be sure to drive while strong in body and mind, correctly and without mistake, for the benefit of the world and its people.

Heisei 14, 10th month, 15th day The Gūji, Yahiko Shrine

26 This example shows clearly how the relationship between ritual and subjective orientation is to be understood. Clearly the ritual is not regarded as more important than the resolve to drive correctly. Indeed the ritual assists in the production of this resolve. The recognition that things are as they are includes the acknowledgement that accidents can happen. Symbolic protection against that eventuality includes the resolve to do what one can to avoid it. Thus here too, as in the case of name selection, we see an intimate relation between ritual and the shaping of life itself, in so far as it is in one's power to do so. There is not really any need to go into the details of this with the ritual specialist at the shrine, since it is the same for everybody. He (for these roles are carried out by men) will perform his role, say the ritual prayer which is difficult to pronounce, wave his purificatory wand and ceremoniously hand over the protective document.

By means of this ritual the driver will lay bare his or her identity before the kami and inwardly adopt the correct resolve to drive safely. Thus there is no question of automatism. A similar dynamic is involved in prayers for safety on industrial sites, for success in fishing, or for a good outcome in endeavours to find an appropriate marital partner. We can therefore see from this example that ritual practices of this kind are a symbolic accompaniment to that which the individual himself or herself is resolved to do, and that their meaning lies in adding strength and perspective to this resolve.

Conclusions: primal religious systems in East Asia

In the wider East Asian perspective indicated above, and for which no apology is made, attention has been given to some very specific examples from Japan which illustrate how an extremely ritualised style of religion is used as a springboard for life-shaping decisions. Both in Japan and in the other countries of East Asia the centre of gravity in religious practice lies in the articulation of the affairs of ordinary life. While this has often been noticed by those writing about religion in one country or the other, the wider view is rarely considered. On the contrary, confusion has been provided in the older literature by a miscellany of statements about "popular religion", "syncretism", "superstition", etc., terms which can make a specialist in the study of religions quite upset when poorly or inappropriately used. Space does not allow a systematic treatment of this terminology here.28

28 Note however that the writer has firmly rejected the identification of "syncretism" with mere "synthesis" (Pye 1994).

27 The comparative perspective across East Asia at first throws up a proliferation both of varying details and of apparent differences. Where, in China, are the votive tablets (ema) or the seven gods of fortune (shichifukujin), which are such regular features in Japan? Where, in Japan, is the prayer towards the sky (tiān, Japanese ten) using incense sticks? Where is the paper money, which in China is burned in tons for the welfare of the departed ancestors? But these are indeed details. In fact the underlying systems are analogous in many ways, even though attempts to correlate them seem to be practically non-existent.

In terms of a general theory of Japanese religion, it is not so very difficult to provide the necessary correlations. The key point is to differentiate between a general level of religiosity, which I have called the "primal religion" of contemporary Japan, and the specific religious communities and their teachings.29 The latter each stand in their own relationship to the general range of common practice. For example, The Association of Shintō Shrines has its own view of itself, and of Shintō, which at various points is more distinct than the generality of the primal religious system with which it overlaps. Can the same model be applied to the countries of East Asia? I believe that, mutatis mutandis, it can be. The fundamentals of the primal religious system are comparable, not merely because so much in Japan was adopted from China but because there are certain structural inevitabilities. A primal religious system is based on a natural kinship society, which seeks to understand and manage its current situation in time and space, providing life-routes for the individuals which make it up. In space, the sacred is localised, and if it is recognizably localised it is deserving of attention, however brief. Hence, as was noted, Chinese passers-by can just as well wave their incense at Sri Krishna as at Guanyin, while Japanese passers-by can be drawn into an abbreviated performance of o-mairi in front of extremely simple objects such as stones and trees, provided that they are demarcated as holy with a piece of thin rope. Time is so structured that human beings, within the kinship group from family to nation, are called upon to recognize the significance of when they exist on any one day and even in any one hour. The details only need to be elucidated by experts. Time also provides the chronological perspective of the kinship society by focusing on the ancestors. The management of death itself is therefore secondary in importance to the veneration of the ancestors which means, not their "worship" but their respect and care (senzokuyō), just as would be appropriate for older persons who happen still to be alive. In this perspective the "life rituals"

29 This analysis has been set out in at least preliminary detail in various articles. A longer study is in preparation. Note that the word "primal" is not the same as the word "primitive", and does not suggest it. Thus the criticism by Reader and Tanabe in this respect (1998, p. 27) misses the point.

28 for newly born and newly responsible individuals (adulthood and marriage) take their place. Community festivals (matsuri) have a more widely social function, celebrating the coherence and the mutual belonging of the relevant groups, and somehow ensuring, or at least willing their security and prosperity. It is small wonder that everyday ritual practice typically involves innumerable transactions with gods, buddhas, ancestors, spirits, heroes, and in China even with tiān. Money flows in small amounts, which add up to large amounts. And sometimes it flows in large amounts, which add up to extremely large amounts. In exchange come reassurance, a sense of protection, promises, new orientations, even solutions to problems. Within the overall system individuals find their own particular way, mainly content with the proximate soteriology which is typically offered. The proximate soteriology of primal religion is secondary and optional. It does not disturb the system itself but, on the contrary, reinforces it. Such systems, in all the countries of East Asia, are widely regarded as recipes for efficacious living, with or without smart subway systems and tall skyscrapers.

The various teachings and specialised practices, which go beyond the primal systems, have no alternative but to relate to them, each in their own way. Some participate in the world of "enchantment" while others demystify it and try to reject it. The particular character of any one Buddhist denomination, of any clearly delineated tradition such as formally organized Shintō, or of any one new religion, can therefore be read in terms of its relation to the primal religious system of the surrounding society. Consequently it is not at all surprising that many overlapping characteristics can be seen among those religions which take a relaxed or even positive view of particular features, for example the sale of amulets. In this way the various temples and shrines participate in the primal religious system and support it. Even those which distance themselves in some way from this or that practice, declaring it to be "superstitious", will participate in other aspects such as the calendrical routine or ancestor veneration.

So what does the future hold for religion in the various countries of modern or post-modern East Asia? It seems that the future is already here. The apparent paradox of rationality and irrationality in religion is in reality nothing but one feature of a system which occurs in fascinating variations. It can be observed in Japan, with particular clarity, but also in Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. Looking to mainland China, the gradual but steady introduction of market-oriented economic activity will undoubtedly provide new opportunities for what appears to outsiders to be non-rational, "enchanted" religion. However in so far as this occurs it will simply be an expression of the resurgence of an underlying primal system with its own coherence, the resurgence of a system which somehow works. Thus, in many ways the future of religion for mainland China can already be read today in the commercialised cultures of Singapore and Taiwan. Struggling for or against Falungong is a sideshow. Singapore is in a

29 sense more pluralist, for it includes its Malay and Indian components at a rather intimate level, all served by one urban transport system. Even colonial nostalgia has some kind of a home there, with the expensive Raffles complex next to the great churches, and a relatively large Chinese Christian community. Numerous English "Christian" names such as Emily betray this old connection, creating culture including religious culture on two fronts, as in the cemetery which combines crosses and incense burners. The wealthy, energetic religious enterprises of Taiwan have a more energetic and confrontational impact. How the latent power of these will be worked out in future correlations with the mainland remains to be seen.

Returning to Japan, as the main focus of this paper, it is entirely to be expected that the primal religious system will continue to provide a kind of common denominator for the foreseeable future. A resurgence of the strength of Shintō is seen here and there, but it is also held in check by other self-confident religious groups. As a result, with occasional adjustments, the settlement provided in the "post-war" constitution, is likely to be maintained. Within the very wide range of religious activities which take place, there will continue to be a wide-spread assumption that the given state of one's individual and family existence can be elucidated by traditional forms of investigation (i.e. divination) and secured or improved with the help of appropriate rituals. The connecting "glue" between divination and performative ritual is to be found in the existential involvement of the individuals concerned.

References cited

Bellah, Robert N., Tokugawa Religion: The Values of Pre-industrial Japan, New York (The Free Press), 1957.

Dai Kangsheng, Zhang Xinying and Michael Pye (eds.), Religion and Modernisation in China. Proceedings of the International Association for the History of Religions held in Beijing, China, April 1992, Cambridge (Roots and Branches), 1995.

De Bary, William Th., Donald Keene and Tsunoda Ryusaku, Sources of Japanese Tradition, (New York and London (Columbia University Press), 1958.

Isomura Jun'ichi, "The discursive position of religious studies in Japan: Masaharu Anesaki and the origins of religious studies", Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 14, 1 (2002): 21-46.

Kisala, Robert, "Contemporary karma. Interpretations of karma in Tenrikyō and Risshō Kōseikai", Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 21, 1 (1994): 73-91.

30 McEwan, J. R., The Political Writings of Ogyū Sorai, London (C.U.P.), 1962.

Pauer, Erich, "Japanischer Geist - westliche Technik: Zur Rezeption westlicher Technologie in Japan", Saeculum XXXVIII, Heft 1, 1987: 19-51.

Pye, Michael, "Syncretism versus synthesis", Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 6, 3 (1994): 217-229.

Pye, Michael, "Won Buddhism as a Korean new religion", Numen 49, 2 (2002): 113-141.

Pye, Michael, "Modern Japan and the Science of Religions", in: Gerard A. Wiegers (ed.) Modern Societies and the Study of Religions. Studies in Honour of Lammert Leertouwer, Leiden (E. J. Brill) 2002: 350-376. To be reprinted in Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 15, 1 (2003).

Reader, Ian and Tanabe George, Practically Religious. Worldly Benefits and the Common Religion of Japan, Honolulu (University of Hawaii Press), 1998.

Sagara Satomu (ed.), Nihon no shisō 日本の思想 Vol. 9, Tōkyō (Chikuma Shobō), 1969.

Tominaga Nakamoto (Michael Pye, trans.), Emerging from Meditation, London and Hawaii (Duckworth and University of Hawaii Press), 1990.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo (William Scott Wilson, trans.), Hagakure. The Book of the Samurai, Tōkyō (Kodansha International), 1979/ 1983.

Zhuo Xinping, "The renewal of religion in the modernisation of Chinese society", in: Dai Kangsheng, Zhang Xinying and Michael Pye, 1995: 45-51.

31

Japan-Zentrum Philipps-Universität Marburg OCCASIONAL PAPERS

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Occasional Papers No. 2 Ulrike Schaede Forwards and Futures in Tokugawa-period Japan: A New Perspective on the Dōjima Rice Market. Marburg, 1988.

Occasional Papers No. 3 Erich Pauer The Years Economic Historians Lost: Japan 1850-1890. Marburg, 1988.

Occasional Papers No. 4 Ulrike Schaede Liberalization of Money Markets: A Comparison of Japan and West Germany. Marburg, 1989.

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Occasional Papers No. 6 David M. Morris (Oxford University) The Miki/Kōmoto Faction: A Case Study of a Faction of the LDP. Marburg, 1990.

Occasional Papers No. 7 David Williams (Oxford University) The Revolutionary 1980s. Towards a New Era in the Euro-American Science of Japanese Government. Marburg, 1991.

Occasional Papers No. 8 Lee W. Farnsworth (Brigham Young University) The Japanese Zoku-Giin: A Comparison to Policy Roles of U. S. Congressmen and State Legislators. Marburg, 1991.

Occasional Papers No. 9 Janet Hunter (London School of Economics) Women in the Japanese Economy: A Historical Perspective. Marburg, 1992.

Occasional Papers No. 10 Peter Wetzler (Fachhochschule Rheinland-Pfalz) The Information Epoch and the New Consensus in Japan. Culture Revised and Reinterpreted for the Future. Marburg, 1992.

Occasional Papers No. 11 Yoshio Sugimoto (La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia) Towards a Multicultural Analysis of Japanese Society. Marburg, 1993.

Occasional Papers No. 12 James Lincoln (Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley) Arne L. Kalleberg (Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Commitment, Quits, and Work Organization in Japanese and U. S. Plants. Marburg, 1993.

Occasional Papers No. 13 James Lincoln (Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley) Work Organization in Japan and the United States. Marburg, 1993.

Occasional Papers No. 14 Ulrike Schaede (Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley) The „Old Boy“ Network and Government-Business Relationship in Japan: A Case Study of „Consultative Capitalism“. Marburg, 1994.

Occasional Papers No. 15 Kathleen Sue Uno (Temple University Philadelphia) ‚Good Wife, Wise Mother‘ in Early Twentieth Century Japan. Marburg, 1994.

Occasional Papers No. 16 Tetsuji Okazaki / Masahiro Okuno-Fujiwara (Faculty of Economics, University of Tōkyō) Historical Origins of the Contemporary Japanese Economic System. Marburg, 1994.

Occasional Papers No. 17 Osamu Itō (Department of Economics, Kanagawa University) The Second World War and the Transformation of the Japanese Economic System. Marburg, 1994.

Occasional Papers No. 18 James R. Lincoln (Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley) Nakata Yoshifumi (Department of International Relations, Dōshisha University) The Transformation of the Japanese Employment System: Nature, Depth, and Origins. Marburg, 1996.

Occasional Papers No. 19 James R. Lincoln / Michael L. Gerlach (Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley) and Christina Ahmadjian (Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, New York) Keiretsu Networks and Corporate Performance in Japan. Marburg, 1996.

Occasional Papers No. 20 Erich Pauer (Philipps-Universität Marburg, Center for Japanese Studies) Rules, Goals, Information - A Key to the Question of Continuity and Change in Japan. Marburg, 1996. . Occasional Papers No. 21 Aiuchi Takatomo, Kitagawa Ryuta, Masumura Noriko, Shichino Yoshihiko and Yamaji Toshiyuki (Kōbe University, Graduate School of Business Administration) Impact of the International Accounting Standards on Japanese Financial Statements Applying to the IAS to the Financial Statements prepared under Japanese Accounting Standard. Marburg, 1997.

Occasional Papers No. 22 Abe Kenya, Higashine Minoru and Kamada Kazuhiro (Kōbe University, Graduate School of Business Administration) Foreign Exchange Risk Management. Practices of Japanese Export Firms. Marburg, 1997.

Occasional Papers No. 23 Hashimoto Tomoko, Maeda Kensaku, Sumida Kazuhiro and Uematsu Kenji (Kōbe University, Graduate School of Business Administration): Employer‘s Accounting for Pensions of Japanese Firms. Marburg, 1997.

Occasional Papers No. 24 Ōhata Takashi, Kura Mitsuyoshi, Sumida Yutaka and Yamaguchi Tomoyuki (Kōbe University, Graduate School of Business Administration) A Financial Analysis of Some Rapidly Growing Venture Businesses in Japan. Marburg, 1997.

Occasional Papers No. 25 Ulrike Schaede (Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego) Industry Rules: The Replacement of Government Rules by Self-Regulation. Marburg, 2001.

Occasional Papers No. 26 Hendrik Meyer-Ohle (Department of Japanese Studies, National University of Singapore) The Crisis of Japanese Retailing at the Turn of the Millennium: A Crisis of Corporate Governance and Finance. Marburg, 2001.

Occasional Papers No. 27 Kobayashi Tatsuya (Chūkyō University, Japan) Strengthening the Bridge Between Japan and Africa - Technological Choice in Development Aid. Marburg, 2001.

Occasional Papers No. 28 Cornelia Storz (Japan-Zentrum, Philipps-Universität Marburg) Wandel durch Diskontinuität oder Stabilität? Zum Wechsel institutioneller Verfahren in japanischen Unternehmen. Marburg, 2002.

Occasional Papers No. 29 Michael Pye (Japan-Zentrum, Philipps-Universität Marburg) Rationality, ritual and life-shaping decisions in modern Japan. Marburg, 2003.

Occasional Papers No. 30 Shibata Masashi (Richter am Familiengericht Tōkyō) Struktur, Aufgaben und Arbeit der japanischen Familiengerichte. Marburg, 2003. (in Vorbereitung)