The nature of religious violence in premodern Japan is a complicated topic. There has not been enough scholarly attention given to the intellectual contributions of Buddhism during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as the relative power of Buddhism in Japan declined. The relationship between warriors and Buddhism underwent a tremendous shift during the Sengoku-Tokugawa transition from intense violent warfare to an enforced peace based on a rigid sociopolitical hierarchy established by the warrior government. In a society where violence had been prevalent, how was violence conceptualized during this shift towards peace? A certain Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest, Takuan Sōhō (1573–1645), whose ideas were later interpreted in the early twentieth century as justifying violence, stood at the nexus of this shift. His works laden with violent and non-violent metaphors, need to be revisited and reanalyzed. This thesis examines the development of the relationship between Buddhism and violence, taking up Takuan’s metaphors as a case study. It focuses on two works, both of which have been interpreted as tracts to justifying the use of violence: “The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom” (Fudōchi shimyōroku 不動智神妙録) and “The Annals of [the Sword] Taia” (Taiaki 太阿記). Theories of metaphorical conceptualization and extension will be applied to analyze these metaphors to arrive at a more accurate interpretation. Takuan used metaphors to explain how his concept of the `non-stopping mind’ (止まぬ心), a mind free from attachments, functioned, but also to analogize swordsmanship to Buddhist practice, and liken warriors to bodhisattvas; in his view, swordsmanship practiced with the non-stopping mind could act as a beginning point for warriors to begin a path towards enlightenment. While Takuan’s language sometimes appears violent, a careful analysis of his use of Buddhist metaphorical entailments reveal that in actuality it is not violent.
