As Kondō Shuntarō, one of the editors of this volume, points out, studies on wartime Japanese Buddhism have focused on pursuing the responsibility of Buddhists in abetting and supporting the Japanese war e5ort. Such studies condemned wartime Buddhist monks and organizations for distorting the original nature of Buddhism under the in3uence of “Japanism” (Nihon shugi 日本主義). This approach was dominant among scholars in the field long after the end of the war. Their research praised the exceptional people who “resisted” the system while consigning the rest to the dark “history of submission to the emperor-centered Japanese state” (p. ii). Defined by the two extremes of “resistance” and “submission,” studies on wartime Japanese Buddhism were forced into an impasse without being able to engage in any productive arguments. Such is Kondō’s analysis and he has hit the nail right on the head. The promotional blurb that accompanies this book calls it an attempt to overcome the dualistic thinking based on “resistance” and “submission.” As this suggests, this collection of essays, the result of a joint research project by a total of sixteen scholars including the supervising editor Ishii Kōsei as well as editors Kondō Shuntarō and Nawa Tatsunori, seeks to break through the rigidly dualistic narrative that has hampered studies on wartime Japanese Buddhism. This is a volume that we have long been waiting for.
