THE LIVELIHOOD OF THE PRIESTS AT OYAMA TOWN IN SAGAMI PROVINCE IN THE EARLY PERIOD OF THE MEIJI ERA

Abstract

When the Meiji era began, there occurred drastic religious reformations, such as Shinbutsubunri (the separation of Shintoism from Buddhism) and Haibutsukishaku (the abandonment of Buddhism).
The priests at Oyama Town, where the famous Acala temple is located, lost the protection given by the Tycoon throughout the Tokugawa Shogunate periods, and were also deprived of their temple-supporters. They found it difficult to get their living.
The old records of a potent priest there, one of the Murayamas, show that the priests at Oyama Town carried on many kinds of business transactions which had nothing to do with religious activities. The priests could not live on religious services, so they were forced to retail liquor, grocery, footwear, tea, hair oil, and drugs, and to carry on pawn shops and a mutual credit-society, and to rear breeding pigs and silkworms. Some of them worked at the town office, and others taught at school, and became salaried men.
Those priests who continued religious activities could not buy presents to take to their temple-supporters, so they visited them with a little spill as a present.
They narrowly continued their religious activities.