By comparing the ideas of Kato Genchi and Liang Qichao, this paper seeks to reveal the presence of a social Darwinist logic in the modern conceptions of the relationship between nationalism and religion. Based on a social Darwinist perspective, Kato argued for the necessity of a "new religion" to create social cohesion in Japanese society. From the viewpoint of social Darwinism, international relations are a fierce struggle for survival among the various nations, and a society or a nation must be "strong" to win this battle for existence. In order to be strong, people must form a homogenous body politic. Kato understood religions as bearing common values that inte- grate individuals into society. Kato thought it to be essential for the formation of an integrated society that all members of the community share an affiliation to the same religion. This same logic of the relationship between religion and social Darwinism is also found in the thought of Liang Qichao, an eminent scholar, journalist and politician in late imperial and early republican China. Liang's perception of religion underwent various transformations during his lifetime, but Liang persisted in expecting religion or something religious to edify the Chinese people and cause social integration to take place. Like Kato, Liang considered religion to provide the common values that ought to be shared by all members of a nation.

View full abstract

In SSKM, which was owned by Renkoji, there is a notation by Shaku Zenshin, together with the inscription of Honen's portrait, which Honen allowed Shinran to copy. If this notation is correct, it might be decisive evidence that Shinran changed his name from Shakku to Zenshin in 1205 (Genkyu 2). Furuta Takehiko asserts in his book Shinran's Thought: Critique of Historical Materials (1975), that the notation by Zenshin was a part of the handwritten document by Shinran, which had been given to Shoshin from Shinran himself in 1216 (Kenpo 4), and Shoshin inserted the document into SSKM in order to demonstrate that he was an authentic disciple of Shinran. In this paper, I verify that the document was not Shinran's own handwriting alone, nor Shoshin's autograph, from three viewpoints: the confusion of the order of SSKM, the historical investigation of languages in the document, and from the perspective whether SSKM fulfills the requirements as ketsumyaku monju (manifestation of authentic tradition of dharma). In conclusion, I have no choice but to affirm that the document was inserted into SSKM after the death of Shoshin. I reconfirmed my coherent assertion that the renaming of Shinran occurred in 1205.

View full abstract

Both Iwashita Soichi (a Catholic priest) and Tsunawaki Ryumyo (a Nichiren priest) were managers of private leprosy relief institutions during the pre-wartime of the Showa era. Not only was the pre-war time of the Showa era a semi-wartime situation with overriding totalitarianism, but in the history of leprosy relief it was referred to as "the promotive period of absolute isolation." It was the heyday of the policy of total isolation for lepers, which was a long-standing negative system. This paper takes up earlier period of the Showa era from the common perspective of two persons, and the aim is to examine from the ethical side about how they undertook activities of leprosy relief. Iwashita understood that patients could get positive, independent "life" by consciously building a relationship of mutual trust with a nation state and a church through Catholicism. In the case of Tsunawaki, on the other hand, there was an unconditional acceptance of absolute relations between human beings and society called jinkyo raihai ("deep respect and honor") based on the chapter of "The Bodhisattva Never-disparaging" in the Lotus Sutra, which examined ethical problems of leprosy relief without regard to patients themselves.

View full abstract

Kishimoto Hideo, a scholar of the science of religion, took the problem of a being a human being very seriously. He groped for religion that would solve human problems. He pursued the way to be brought toward spiritual enlightenment. He thought he could solve even the problem of death if he saw everlasting life in the real world. However, when he was diagnosed with for skin cancer at the age of 51 years old, with only half a year remaining in his life, he was thrust into the realization that both his study and the view of life and death which he grasped ideally were useless. After he realized this fact, he continued to pursue a way to solve human problems in the present age. Being moved by thought of Naruse Jinzo, who was the founder of Japan Women's University, Kishimoto came to understand death as a "parting time." His state of mind changed greatly. He understood deeply that death did not have substance, but life has substance. Kishimoto became "an absolute affirmer of life." The life that Kishimoto detected in later years was the everlasting life of the world that Kishimoto continued to demand. In this article I consider the relation of "the religion" of Kishimoto in his later years and this life, while pursuing the changes in his state of mind.

View full abstract

The folk shamans called itako in Aomori, northeastern Iwate, and northern Akita prefectures are well-known in Japan through the mass media. But the representation of itako constructed by the mass media (itako as mass-culture, ITAKO) is different from the itako as folk-culture. This paper attempts to clarify the actual conditions of ITAKO from the 1970s to 1980s, especially focusing on the influence of the occult boom, by analyzing the discourse in print media. The occult boom in Japan beginning in the 1970s rediscovered the religiosity of ITAKO, which had been avoided by the masses, as the occult the masses wanted. As a result, ITAKO changed from "other's culture" to "our mysterious knowledge." This change means the transformation of value in ITAKO and implies that the religiosity of ITAKO became an object consumed by the masses. It can be said that such popularization of the ITAKO's religiosity played a central role in the establishment of ITAKO as mass-culture.

View full abstract

In ancient Mexico (Mesoamerica), where a series of great civilizations such as the Aztec and the Maya flourished before the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century, the flower was one of the most distinguished religious symbols. It represented Tamoanchan, the mythical place of origin. While there exist several studies that refer to the cultural significance of the flower in Mesoamerica, they have hardly paid enough attention to the fact that the theme of the flower is intimately related to that of "laughter." I realized this through examining some Spanish and Nahuatl (the ancient Aztec language) documents from around the 16th century and archaeological materials. In this essay I present some examples from religious poems and mythologies of ancient Mexico which show the remarkable relationship between the flower and laughter. Then, to inquire further into the religious meaning of laughter for the Aztecs, I refer to modern mythologies of the Mexican indigenous groups (documented in the early and mid-20th century) and show that the theme of laughter was, just as that of the flower, one of the important cosmogonic symbols in the Aztec religious tradition.

View full abstract

This paper considers on the problem of necessity in Spinoza's ontology. For that reason, I will consider this problem mainly on the human attitude toward fate. In the first place, the appearance of fortune is examined in reliance on Kuki Shuzo's theories, and I show that fortune is a cause for a human being to hold a strong imagination from which one cannot escape easily, so that there is no room for accepting other thoughts in the mind. Secondly, through considering Leibniz's criticism of Spinoza, I clarify fortune's two faces, and confirm Spinoza's argument that human beings cannot judge fortune freely. Finally, I examine the problem of the acknowledgement of fortune with the above-mentioned results. This is a basic analysis of real existence and an elucidation of time as imagination. In conclusion, considering fortune along with Spinoza's thought, the necessity of the problem of the grace of God is shown.

View full abstract