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  • 13 - Religion in the Tokugawa Period

  • from Part III - Social Practices and Cultures of Early Modern Japan
  • Edited by David L. Howell, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge History of Japan
    Published online:
    15 January 2024
    Print publication:
    23 November 2023, pp 443-477

  • Summary

    This chapter sketches the main features of the landscape of “faith” in Tokugawa-period Japan. This was a time when every person in Japan was legally obliged to register with a Buddhist temple, while simultaneously most people were actively engaged in numerous other faith-related activities, from membership in pilgrimage groups to making donations to roaming troupes of pseudo-religious street performers. The multifarious purveyors of faith-related services competed for custom, and the authorities were obliged to arbitrate in a never-ending stream of lawsuits and conflicts. Temple affiliation was rendered compulsory because faith needed to be policed, so as to ensure that “pernicious creeds” (notably foreign Christianity) would not corrupt the populace. Yet warrior administrators consistently refused to become a party in disputes about doctrinal matters, preferring to grant people a free choice in matters of faith and limit temples’ hold over their parishioners.