Modernizing Society and Popular Religions

Abstract

In this paper, I set out two agendas, based on the cosmology-ideology complex theory presented by Dr. Shimazono Susumu. The first is shifting the focus from the cosmology-ideology complex itself to society and examining changes of the position of the cosmology-ideology complex. The second point―beginning in the 19th century―is to understand both the continuity and discontinuity in the history of the Meiji Restoration and seeing it as a kind of boundary. In the first section I point out that urban intellectuals founded Honmon Butsuryū Kō and that the cosmology-ideological complex changed to a rational one based on Western learning. In the second section, I show that there was an attempt to overcome magical elements through the separation of Shinto and Buddhism (shinbutsu bunri) and that the destruction of Buddhism (haibutsu kishaku), and that the principle of separation of public and private space was introduced. These ideas, which can be found in Tenrikyō, conformed with Meiji government policy and modernity.