Practical Pursuits : : Religion, Politics, and Personal Cultivation in Nineteenth-Century Japan / / Janine Anderson Sawada.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter UHP eBook Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Sawada, Janine Anderson,
• Place / Publishing House: Honolulu : : University of Hawaii Press, , [2004]; ©2004
• Year of Publication: 2004
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (400 p.) :; illus.

The idea that personal cultivation leads to social and material well-being became widespread in late Tokugawa Japan (1600-1868). Practical Pursuits explores theories of personal development that were diffused in the early nineteenth century by a network of religious groups in the Edo (Tokyo) area, and explains how, after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the leading members of these communities went on to create ideological coalitions inspired by the pursuit of a modern form of cultivation. Variously engaged in divination, Shinto purification rituals, and Zen practice, these individuals ultimately used informal political associations to promote the Confucian-style assumption that personal improvement is the basis for national prosperity.This wide-ranging yet painstakingly researched study represents a new direction in historical analysis. Where previous scholarship has used large conceptual units like Confucianism and Buddhism as its main actors and has emphasized the discontinuities in Edo and Meiji religious life, Sawada addresses the history of religion in nineteenth-century Japan at the level of individuals and small groups. She employs personal cultivation as an interpretive system, crossing familiar boundaries to consider complex linguistic, philosophical, and social interconnections.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- CONVENTIONS -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. The Fertility of Dead Words -- Chapter 2. Divination as Cultivation -- Chapter 3. Breathing as Purification -- Chapter 4. The Parameters of Learning -- Chapter 5. Practical Learning in the Meditation Hall -- Chapter 6. Koji Zen -- Chapter 7. Shifting Boundaries in the Sangha -- Chapter 8. The Great Synthesis -- Chapter 9. Enlightened Conservatives -- Chapter 10. The Enemy Within -- AFTERWORD -- NOTES -- GLOSSARY -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX