The Meiji Restoration and Shugendō

Abstract

This paper reexamines the early Meiji religious policy that brought great changes to the spiritual culture of the Japanese people. The series of legislations known as the “Edict for the separation of kami and buddhas” issued after March 1868 was a result of restorationist fundamentalism that aimed to “purify” Shinto by “clarifying” the kami-buddha admixture that then prevailed. The purpose of these edicts was to make Shinto the Japanese state religion, but an anti-Buddhist movement ensued that saw the violent destruction of Buddhist statues and temples. Shugendō was banned in 1872 by order of the Dajōkan (The Great Council of State). Shugendō, considered the epitome of kami-buddha admixture, was dismembered and eliminated as if a scapegoat. As many as 170,000 shugen were laicised to then become Shinto priests, became ordained as Buddhist monks affiliated to one sect or another, or simply left the religious life entirely many taking up farming. Those responsible for the violence against Buddhism in the early years of the Meiji period were chiefly nativist scholars called Kokugakusha, former Buddhists who had laicised and became Shinto priests, and also lower-ranking Shinto priests. Though their ideas may have been subtly different, they were united in what they held to be the noble cause of obeying the Emperor's orders, which they adroitly reinterpreted, upsetting the traditional value system. In this paper we examine case studies of a number of Shugendō headquarters, such as Mt. Haguro, Mt. Yoshino, Mt. Hikosan, and localized Shugendō in villages. This study of the change is clearly exemplified by the eradication, revival, reconstruction and recreation of Shugendō, and by the revival and decline of confraternities associated with making pilgrimage to sacred mountains.