Search Results (4)

The East Asian world has shared both universal characteristics and regional particularities, forming a Buddhist cultural area for more than 1500 years. One of the main features of East Asian Buddhism is a “state–Buddhist link”. This article will focus on the early modern period, and on the periphery, Korea and Japan, rather than the center, China. If we can identify the attributes of the institutional connection between the state and Buddhism in this peripheral area of the East Asian world, and in a period when Buddhism was less prominent than before, we can understand it as a long-term universal characteristic of East Asian Buddhist cultures. In this article, I have tried to locate the common ground between Japanese and Korean Buddhism in the early modern period at two points: the change in the perception of Buddhism in the early modern period and the mechanism of the relationship between the state and Buddhism. The common ground here is that there is a movement in the two countries to break away from the negative perception of Buddhism in the early modern period and approach its historical reality. In terms of the mechanism of the relationship between the state and Buddhism, the Edo period saw the implementation of the temple parish system, which linked temples and people in each region, allowing the shogunate to indirectly control the people, while each sect was able to establish financial stability and thus its sectarian identity. In late Chosŏn, the institutionalization of the monk state service allowed the state to utilize the monk labor force and the surplus goods of the temples, and in return, the Buddhist community was allowed to rather peacefully exist in Confucian society. This shows that there was a close relationship between the two. There are many differences between Japanese and Korean Buddhism in the early modern period, but they share the characteristics of state Buddhism, where the state and Buddhism were institutionally related. The mechanism of the win–win relationship between the state and Buddhism can be understood as a universal characteristic of East Asian Buddhist history beyond Japan and Korea in the early modern period. Full article

There has been long-standing debate as to whether Kami Fumi-e (paper images to be trampled on) had actually been used in image trampling sessions as part of the 250-year persecution of Christianity enforced by the Tokugawa Shogunate. Sacred images of Christianity officially recorded to have been trampled on are housed in the permanent collection of the Tokyo National Museum and are almost uniquely made of metal alloy. The controversy regarding paper images, apart from the medium being considered unsuitable for such extreme use, was fueled by the appearance of a significant number of them in museum collections and institutions worldwide in the 20th century. Most of the prints bear dates from different eras of the Edo period, sometimes hundreds of years apart; therefore, long-standing arguments regarding their authenticity marked the last century. In order to distinguish later copies from potentially original pieces, if ever existed, XRF, Raman, and FTIR analytical techniques were used to study the materials characterizing them. In addition, detailed observation of the main visual features (overall design composition, inscriptions, paper support, etc.) was carried out to highlight potential discrepancies that could pair with scientific evidence and lead to a definitive conclusion. Full article

Shoho Castle Maps are maps of castle towns throughout Japan drawn by Kano School painters on the order of the shogun in 1644. The Shoho Castle Map of Takada, Joetsu City, Niigata Prefecture was used to visualize local distortions in historical maps and to scrutinize the mapmaking process. A novel method, geographically weighted bidimensional regression, was developed and applied to visualize the local distortions of the map. Exaggerated expressions by mapmakers that have not been identified in previous studies were revealed. That is, in addition to the castle being drawn enlarged, the town where the merchants and artisans lived was drawn larger than the castle. Therefore, the Takada Shoho Castle Map reflects mapmakers’ intentions, besides enlarging military facilities, which appear to have emphasized the pictorial composition of the map by placing the main gate to the castle at the center and drawing the map area evenly from the center in a well-balanced layout. Full article

This essay traces the Japanese reception of Zhuhong’s Tract on Refraining from Killing and on Releasing Life in the early modern period. Ritual animal releases have a long history in Japan beginning in the seventh century, approximately two centuries after such rituals arose in China. From the mid-eighth century, the releases became large-scale state rites conducted at Hachiman shrines, which have been most widely studied and documented. By contrast, a different strand of life releases that emerged in the Edo period owing to the influence of late Ming Buddhism has received comparatively little scholarly attention despite the significance for the period. Not only may the publication of a Sino–Japanese edition of Zhuhong’s Tract in 1661 have been an impetus for Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi’s Laws of Compassion in the late-seventeenth century, but also approximately thirty Japanese Buddhist texts inspired by Zhuhong’s Tract appeared over the next two and a half centuries. As Zhuhong’s ethic of refraining from killing and releasing life was assimilated over the course of the Edo and into the Meiji period, life releases became primarily associated with generating merit for the posthumous repose of the ancestors although they were also said to have a variety of vital benefits for the devotees and their families, such as health, longevity, prosperity, and descendants. Full article