Deconstructing "Japanese Religion" : One Perspective on the Scholarly History(<Special Issue>Criticism of Religion)

Abstract

The concept of the "history of Japanese religion" was coined by Anesaki Masaharu at the end of the Meiji era in English for Western readers, then later translated into Japanese by him. Eventually almost all Japanese scholars avoid using this phrase, especially after the Asian-Pacific War, because it carries the nuance of nationalistic exclusiveness. In studies of specific religious phenomena, scholars try to comprehend the negotiating process between "the transcendental" and "the indigenous" to explore the characteristic ways of Japanese religion. In these cases Japanese religion is actually reinterpreted as the hybrid space of negotiation to deconstruct the unified substance of Japanese religion, and the unit of each religion (Christianity, Buddhism, Shinto and so on) where the transcendental is indigenized and the indigenous is transcendentalized.