Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T06:47:49.250Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Religion and Conflict in Japan with Special Reference to Shinto and Yasukuni Shrine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Michael Pye
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Japan today projects an external image in which harmonious coherence provides a basis for technical efficiency and cultural excellence. Indeed there is much justification for this image. At the same time there are significant internal tensions which have a long history. Politics and religion have been intertwined for centuries. Political need has often been a powerful motor for religious developments. For example, the major Buddhist denominations were used to register the population and provide stability during the Tokugawa period (1600-1867). Subsequently, the political modernization of the Meiji Restoration (dating from 1868) set this aside and pushed up a new form of ideologized Shinto as a focus of national consciousness. Looking at it from the other side, religions themselves have often provided identities and loyalties, and therewith a motivation for political conflict. This applies to various forms of Buddhism, to Shinto, and to some of Japan's new religions. Thus while Japanese society in some respects appears to be very coherent, its history has frequently been one of internal tension and strife. Factionalism is strong even today, and takes both political and religious forms.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 50 , Issue 3: Identities, Beliefs, Images , August 2003 , pp. 45 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2003

References

Antoni, Klaus (1991) ‘Yasukuni und der “Schlimme Tod” des Kriegers’, in Der himmlische Herrscher und sein Staat. Essays zur Stellung des Tennô im modernen Japan. München: iudicium.Google Scholar
Böhme, Richard (2000) ‘Kriegsverantwortung japanischer Buddhisten: Ein Beschluss der Jôdo Shinshû aus dem Jahr 1995'. Marburg: Fachgebiet Religionswissenschaft [unpublished thesis].Google Scholar
Creemers, Wilhelmus H. M. (1968) Shrine Shinto after World War II. Leiden: E. J. Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fridell, Wilbur M. (1973) Japanese Shrine Mergers 1906-1912. Tokyo: Sophia University.Google Scholar
Holtom, D.C. (1938) The National Faith of Japan. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co.Google Scholar
Lokowandt, Ernst (1981) Zum Verhältnis von Staat und Shintô im heutigen Japan. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Murakami, Shigeyoshi (1968) Japanese Religion in the Modern Century. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press.Google Scholar
Pye, Michael (1986) ‘National and International Identity in a Japanese Religion: Byakkoshinkokai’, in Hayes, Victor C. (ed.) Identity Issues and World Religions, Selected Proceedings of the International Association for the History of Religions, pp. 234–241. Netley: The Australian Association for the Study of Religions/Wakefield Press.Google Scholar
Pye, Michael (1990) ‘Tenno und Shinto, Japan vor der Thronbesteigung’, Alma Mater Philippina, pp. 20–23.Google Scholar
Pye, Michael (1995) ‘Säkularisierung in Japan?’, Dialog der Religionen 5: 140–146.Google Scholar
Pye, Michael (1996). ‘Yasukuni Jinja als umstrittene Kriegsgedenkstätte’, Die Philipps-Universität Marburg im Nationalsozialismus, pp. 267–272. Marburg: Konvent der Philipps-Universität Marburg.Google Scholar
Pye, Michael (1996) ‘Shinto, Primal Religion and International Identity’, Marburg Journal of Religion 1(1). [online at: http://www.uni-marburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/mjr]Google Scholar
Woodard, William P. (1972) The Allied Occupation of Japan 1945-1952 and Japanese Religions. Leiden: E. J. Brill.Google Scholar