This dissertation examines the interplay of religious affiliation, new family structures, and changing social norms through the lens of Buddhist responses to radical shifts in contemporary Japanese burial practices. The ongoing public debate over the status, treatment, and location of the dead brings into sharp focus Japanese Buddhists' efforts to maintain their longstanding social and economic base in mortuary services. This dissertation explores the recent "grave crisis", a phenomenon characterized by a move from extended-family graves to individual forms of burial. Temples in each of the major Buddhist sects are creating so-called "eternal memorial graves" and burial societies to cater to the growing number of Japanese who either refuse to be interred in traditional extended-family graves or lack the requisite descendants to maintain them. These societies, with their emphasis on individual rather than family bonds, have important implications for both the study of Japanese notions of self and Japanese religious affiliation as a whole. A central premise of this study is that new burial practices do not merely register societal change but may also provide the very arena where social norms are first contested.
Chapter One provides historical background to the project by tracing the longstanding connection between Buddhism and the care of the dead in Japan. Chapters Two and Three introduce in-depth case studies of two temples running eternal memorial graves. The first is a small Nichiren temple in rural Niigata and the second is a large Soto Zen temple in downtown Tokyo. Chapter Four shifts the focus away from fixed graves to examine the recent attempts by a Tokyo-based civic group to promote the scattering of ashes in nature. Chapter Five expands the scope of the study to include sectarian Buddhist researchers and their attempts to deal with the "mortuary problem".
