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Karma, War and Inequality in Twentieth Century Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Brian Victoria
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While “karma” is used so often in the West today that it has become almost a household word, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the socio-political role played by karma in Asian societies, past or present. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that the very idea of karma having a socio-political role will come as a surprise to many. That is to say, how could an ethical concept like karma, commonly associated with the good or bad effects of an individual's acts, play a role in collective entities like society and politics?

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 5 , May 2007 , e8
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2007

References

Notes

(1) Bunno Kato. The Threefold Lotus Sutra (Tokyo: Kosei, 1989), p. 343.

(2) For further discussion, see Brian Victoria, Zen at War (New York: Weatherhill, 1997), pp. 41-42.

(3) Quoted in Victoria, Zen at War, p. 199.

(4) Ibid., p. 50.

(5) Ibid., p. 43.

(6) D.T. Suzuki. Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism (New York: Schocken Books, 1963), p. 189.

(7) Ibid., p. 191.

(8) D.T. Suzuki. Suzuki Daisetsu zenshu, Vol. 36 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1971), p. 204.

(9) Ibid., p. 206.

(10) Quoted in Wayne Yokoyama, “Two Addresses by Shaku Soen,” in The Eastern Buddhist (New Series), Vol. 26/2 (1993), pp. 136-37.

(11) Quoted in Brian Victoria, Zen War Stories (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), p. 111.

(12) Ibid., p. 111.

(13) Ibid., p. 111.

(14) Ibid., p. 112.

(15) Ibid., pp. 150-162.

(16) Ibid., p. 150.

(17) Ibid., p. 151.

(18) Ibid., p. 153.

(19) Ibid., p. 153.

(20) Quoted in Victoria, Zen at War, p. 26.

(21) Ibid., pp. 27-28.

(22) Ibid., p. 28.

(23) Ibid., p. 28.

(24) Ibid., p. 132.

(25) Quoted in Victoria, Zen War Stories, p. 156.

(26) Ibid., p. 159.

(27) See Peter Harvey. An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 23-24.

(28) Quoted in Suwanna Satha-Anand, “Karma as Moral Justice in Thai Buddhism” in Manusya: Journal of Humanities (Special Issue), Vol. 4 (2002), p. 81.