On Understanding Japanese Religion / / Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton eBook Package Archive 1931-1999
• VerfasserIn: Kitagawa, Joseph Mitsuo,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2021]; ©1988
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (375 p.)

Joseph Kitagawa, one of the founders of the field of history of religions and an eminent scholar of the religions of Japan, published his classic book Religion in Japanese History in 1966. Since then, he has written a number of extremely influential essays that illustrate approaches to the study of Japanese religious phenomena. To date, these essays have remained scattered in various scholarly journals. This book makes available nineteen of these articles, important contributions to our understanding of Japan's intricate combination of indigenous Shinto, Confucianism, Taoism, the Yin-Yang School, Buddhism, and folk religion. In sections on prehistory, the historic development of Japanese religion, the Shinto tradition, the Buddhist tradition, and the modem phase of the Japanese religious tradition, the author develops a number of valuable methodological approaches. The volume also includes an appendix on Buddhism in America. Asserting that the study of Japanese religion is more than an umbrella term covering investigations of separate traditions, Professor Kitagawa approaches the subject from an interdisciplinary standpoint. Skillfully combining political, cultural, and social history, he depicts a Japan that seems a microcosm of the religious experience of humankind.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Publishing History -- Chronology of Japanese Religion -- PART I Prehistory -- 1. Prehistoric Background of Japanese Religion -- PART II Historic Development of Japanese Religion -- 2. "A Past of Things Present": Notes on Major Motifs of Early Japanese Religions -- 3. Some Remarks on the Study of Sacred Texts -- 4. Stages of the Japanese "Religious Universe" -- 5. Monarchy and Government: Traditions and Ideologies in Pre-Modern Japan -- 6. The Shadow of the Sun: A Glimpse of the Fujiwara and the Imperial Families in Japan -- 7. Matsuri and Matsuri-goto: Religion and State in Early Japan -- 8. Three Types of Pilgrimage in Japan -- PART III Shinto Tradition -- 9. Shinto -- PART IV Buddhist Tradition -- 10. The Samgha and the Ecclesia -- 11. Master and Saviour -- 12. The Buddhist Transformation in Japan -- 13. Buddhist Translation in Japan -- 14. The Career of Maitreya, with Special Reference to Japan -- 15. Paradigm Change in Japanese Buddhism -- PART V The Modern Phase of the Japanese Religious Tradition -- 16. The Religious Ethos of Present-Day Japan -- 17. Some Reflections on Foreign Scholars' Understanding of Japanese Culture and Shinto -- 18. Buddhism and Modern Japanese Thought -- Appendix: Buddhism in America -- Glossary -- Index