日治初期臺灣總督府的宗教政策與日本佛教在臺發展:以真宗本願寺派為例=Taiwan Governor’s Religious Policy in the Early Japanese Colonial Period and the Expansion of Japanese Buddhism in Taiwan - Jodi Shinshu Hongwanji-ha as an Example
Regarding to Taiwan governor’s religious policy during the Japanese Colonial period ( AD.1895-1945 ), Chin-tang Tsai divided it into three specific stages. The first stage was from 1895 to 1914. The Second stage was from 1915, the year right after Xi Lai An incident, to 1930. The last was from 1931, the year of Mukden incident, to 1945. According to the view of Chin-tang Tsai, Taiwan religious policy was not ready and completed yet at the early Japanese colonial period. Chin-tang Tsai’s such three-stages theory was accepted by Religious Historians, who staged Taiwan Buddhist History under the Japanese Colonial period in common. For instance, Chin-tang Tsai and Cheng-tsung Kan also staged Taiwan Buddhist History under the Japanese Colonial period into three stages. The early stage (AD.1895-1915) was an Exploration and Alliance period. The intermediate stage (AD.1915-1931) was Cooperation and Development. The last stage (AD.1931-1945) was Naturalization and Transformation. Selia Temple Incident and Mukden Incident were also regarded as demarcation respectively. Because it was without specific direction of the religious policy at the early stage, both the colonizer and the colonized were under grope. Although it showed no concreted religious policy at the early stage in general, we argued it is necessary to have a review. The reason for that was because of the used researches with deficiency in the overall view. It means a necessary to review the Taiwan religious policy under an overall Japanese colonial aspect. At that time Taiwan had been under Japanese colonial therefore we suggest to deal with internal religious problems which Japan government had faced in advance. We argue that how did Japan governments understand or handle internal religious or Buddhist problem, and would they affect its colonial government as well. Accordingly, this article will firstly deal with Japan internal religious concept and its formation process of religious policy specially regarding to the complicated relation between Shinto and Jodo Shinshu hongwanji-ha under the policy of “the separation of Buddhism and Shintoism”. Such complication also contributed the limitation, while it handled the Taiwan colonial religious problems. Secondly, processing religious surveys and drawing up religious laws during early colonial period had made a legal position and standard for future Taiwan religions and many Buddhist sects from Japan inland. However, regarding to the problem which Japan Buddhist sect’s intentions to integrate local Taiwan Buddhist sects with Japan inland’s mode of “Root Temple-Terminal Temple”, Taiwan governors had hold a reservation on it due to the different pattern between Taiwan and Japan Buddhism.