Old Buddhism Strikes Back

On the Relationship between the New Buddhist Movement and Shaku Unshō

Abstract

In this paper I will take up a conflict between two Buddhist movements representative of modern Japanese Buddhism at the turn of the twentieth century: the “New Buddhism movement” and the “movement for precept revival”.

While the former was led by young, lay-oriented-Buddhists, largely educated in the modern educational system, the leading figure of the latter was Shaku Unshō (1827-1909) who was born in 1827 and trained as a Tokugawa-era monk, and who also insisted on the importance of precept revival to rescue monks from “corruption” and correct national morality.

As described by Buddhist scholars such as Yoshida Kyūichi, New Buddhism has been highly regarded as a point of departure for the modernization of Buddhism in Meiji Japan based on their focus on social problems and belief-centered thought. These younger New Buddhists criticized Unshō and his followers as “Old Buddhists” whose thought should be overcome for the sake of progress. On the other hand, Unshō’s movement has been interpreted as conservative and antiquated in the history of Japanese Buddhist history.

Buddhist precepts are said to have declined in the process of secularization and modernization in Japan. However, in order to complicate this conception of modern Buddhism, I reconsider discourse concerning Buddhist precepts in this period through a comparative analysis of their treatment in these two opposing movements.