Between Superstition and Faith

On Sakaino Kōyō's Conception of “Poetic Buddhism”

Abstract

Several recent studies have described the transformations Japanese Buddhism went through due to the modern appropriation of the Euro-American concept of “religion.” Nevertheless, when tracing these changes, scholars have often overlooked the role played by yet another new idea in the Meiji context: “faith.” Amid discussions involving the equally recent concepts of “science” and “superstition,” the problem of how to interpret Buddhist scripture in light of all these new discursive frameworks became one of the most pressing.

In order to gain further insight into this process, in this paper I will focus on the work of Sakaino Kōyō (1871-1933), a Buddhist intellectual who vigorously engaged in this (re-)construction of Buddhism during the Meiji and the Taishō periods. He was one of the main leaders of the so-called New Buddhism Movement of the late 1890s and, as such, advocated for “a sound faith” and “the utter extermination of all superstitions.” He was also a pioneer in the field of Buddhist history, having penned several ground-breaking works. Here, I will analyze his idea of “Poetic Buddhism” (shiteki bukkyō), developed in the 1890s as a method for interpreting scripture in general. That is, by showing the development of this method in relation to contemporary trends such as liberal theology and modern historiography, this paper intends to provide an insight into the complicated debate between “science” and “religion” in Meiji Japan.