Secrecy's Power: Covert Shin Buddhists in Japan and Contradictions of Concealment. By Clark Chilson. University of Hawaii Press, July 31, 2014. 264 pages. ISBN-10: 0824838394 ISBN-13: 978-0824838393
摘要
Among Buddhist scholars in general, and Shin Buddhist scholars in particular both in Japan and the West, covert followers of Shinran's teachings who kept their distinctive doctrines and practices under an almost unbreakable veil of secrecy were perhaps heard of, but not known or understood. In this extraordinary book, Chilson has lifted the veil of secrecy of one of many covert Shin groups, the Urahōmon. Employing historical and ethnographical sources over several years of fieldwork in central Japan, Secrecy's Power demonstrates how covert teachings and practices have been part of the history of Shin Buddhism since the thirteenth century, when Shinran denounced his eldest son for claiming secret knowledge about Amida Buddha and the means by which to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land. Chilson also demonstrates how secrecy in Shin Buddhism has been both a source of conflict from Shinran's time until the present. Powerful politicians hostile to both secret and non‐secret Shin groups persecuted some covert Shin groups because of their secret teachings and practices, while other groups used secrecy to protect themselves from persecution. Because this book is so focused on the historical consequences concealment has had for covert Shin Buddhist groups, it provides new and fresh insight into the power of secrecy to produce multiple effects. It also sheds light on an ignored dimension of Shin's history as a means of revealing a much richer and diverse Shin Buddhist tradition than has been to this date understood.
