Moriya Tomoe is Associate Professor at Hannan University in Osaka, Japan.
關鍵詞
Suzuki Daisetsu; Inoue Shūten; Shin Bukkyō; division of religious practices; social ethics; Kōtoku Incident; nationalism
摘要
This paper concerns the discourses of two Japanese Zen Buddhists, Suzuki Daisetsu and Inoue Shūten, through analyzing their writings in a Buddhist journal called Shin Bukkyō, in order to examine their presentations of the role of Buddhism at the turn of the twentieth century and how their transnational contacts influenced the construction of their religious ideas. As Itō Hirobumi’s annotation to the Meiji Constitution described, religion in modern Japan witnessed the division of religion into “outward” practices and “inner” religious belief. The Kōtoku Incident (1910–1911) also played a crucial role for Japanese Buddhists in terms of their social engagement, and around this time Suzuki’s discourses in particular began to show a polarization of social criticism in Shin Bukkyō on the one hand, and reflections on spirituality in other journals on the other. Inoue, who was suspected of having a hand in the Kōtoku Incident, wrote critical commentaries and pacifist essays from a Buddhist point of view. In this study, I attempt to uncover the various factors that constructed their religious ideas so as to exemplify the Buddhist responses to rising nationalism and the restriction of freedom of religion and thought.
