日本佛教与政治的关系简谈
An outline/summary of ideas
日本佛教与政治的关系简谈 （一） 一点点历史 （一稿）
Why Japanese Buddhism had been so political during the medieval period, and do this historical fact reconciles with Buddhist’ philosophical disposition of rejecting the “real” world, i.e. an embedded other-worldliness?
■ Historical background
Buddhism had been very political in Japan from the beginning, when the religion was introduced to the country in 6th century from China; a cursory look at this historical fact will tell that there had always been a tradition of active political engagement embedded in Japanese Buddhism. In the Nara （奈良）period, Buddhism was formally incorporated into part of the state structure: large number of temples were built and sponsored by the state; under mandate of central authority, all provinces built their kokubunji （国分寺）, in which Buddhist sutras were read on the daily basis in a purpose to protect and pacify the state; monks were trained and recruited to the government offices; clerics gradually became part of the Japanese ruling class and source of political power. The Buddhist law, buppō （仏法）, was elevated to the status of official law. This is a period that historians see a unification of religion and politics and “ecclesiastification”. This early political experience served to set the tone of late development of Buddhism in Japan.
From the mid Heian （平安）period onwards, namely the medieval period, is what I term a period of “temple politics”, where Buddhist temples gained significant independence, autonomy and accumulated vast resources, gradually developed into political powers in their own right.
These temples all tried to expand by means of the honji-matsuji (本寺) system by establishing new branch temples in existing and new territories; they gradually became major landholders controlling vast lands in Japan (approximately one-fourth of the whole country in their heyday) and enjoy extensive legal and political privileges and immunities (effective extraterritoriality) such as rights of free from political persecution and tax exemption and righ of no-entry (不入権) by secular political authorities; economically, these temples controlled commercial towns, business centres, agricultural, urban manufacturing and trade. These were all sources of economic wealth for the temples and were perfectly fungible to political and military might and influence. Militarily, these temples established their own armed force, namely the sōhei （僧兵）, perhaps a unique feature in Japanese Buddhism, which were used to protect interests of the temple and occasionally undertake aggressive acts against other powers.
Honganji (本願寺), Negoroji (根来寺）, Enryakuji (延暦寺), Kongōji (金剛寺), Kōfukuji (光福寺), Onjōji (園城寺), Taitokuji (大徳寺),Tenryūji (天竜寺) and Daidenōin (大伝法院), were all major temples of the period, whose powers rivaling that of central and local political authorities. They were all independent political actors, and there had been conflicts amongst Buddhist temples themselves and with local daimyō and bushi.
In particular was the Honganji, the major temple of Jōdo Shin-Shū. Jōdo Shin-Shū （浄土真宗）, a new sect founded in the Kamakura （鎌倉）period, had a teaching which was so basic and simple: to achieve nirvana in the current world is not possible, the only way is through entering the Pure Land (Jōdo 浄土), from where achieving nirvana is far more easier; thus a ticket to Jōdo is effectively a ticket to nirvana. By worshipping Amida Buddha （阿弥陀仏）, reading sutras and his name everyday, Amida will come to help and take his followers to the Jōdo. Such teaching was closer to apocalyptical monotheism than to traditional Buddhism, However, it was approachable for the uneducated and very easy to practice. Thus Honganji was able to attract mass followers. The believers were directly loyal to the leader of Honganji and Amida, instead of local and state authorities, thus create a potential source of conflicts between the two sort of authorities.
At the time Honganji acted with little or no effective difference to a typical local daimyō （大名）; in particular, led by cuning leaders such as Rennyo (蓮如), Honganji was a highly hierarchical, sophisticated political organisation which was extremely capable of organising and directing its believers to act on the behalf of the interest of the temple, often in the name of Amida. For example, Honganji very often ordered its grassroot followers, mostly peasants, to undertake revolts against local political authorities, i.e. the ikkō ikki (一向一揆). The capacity massively increased Honganji’s political power and influence and made it a formidable political actor.
So why mediaeval Japanese Buddhist temples had been so political, so much so that they were stranded in the political affairs of the “real” world, in sharp contrast to traditional Buddhist teachings?
日本佛教与政治的关系简谈 （二） 佛教寺院卷入政治的原因 （一稿）
Several reasons
I) A tradition of political activism
The fact that there has been an almost secular tradition within Japanese Buddhist institutions which showed great interest in secular affairs such as economy and politics. This tradition had been passed down from the early period downwards, manifested to its utmost degree in the mediaeval Japan. Priesthood in many temples were hereditary, and the tradition had been transmitted through a family line. Active social and political engagement became in implicit consensus and duty. The only difference between many monks and politicians (or feudal lords and samurai, precisely), were that they were born into a priest family.
Whether the priesthood were hereditary or not is of less importance then we may assume. The important thing is that Japanese Buddhism was so much embedded with practical affairs that it was institutionally political. From a historicised Japanese perspective it is of no surprise because this has been the tradition: a priest has his religious role, and political role as well.
Even some most other-worldliness sect of Buddhism, such as Zen （禅宗）Buddhism, became complexly entangled with politics, such as Zen Buddhism, effectively the officially sponsored sect under the Kamakura bakufu （幕府）.
2) The differentiation of religious teachings, doctrines and religious institutions.
Religious teachings are normally sets of teachings of value references and ideology; Religious institutions are religious organisations that organise and direct religious affairs of the religion, such as organising religious rites, establishing temples, sending missionaries and attracting new followers, training and recruiting clerics, expanding the influence of the religion and undertaking activities which are in modern sense about “public relationships”. Thus religious institutions have their own agenda and set of objectives; they were in their own sense utility-maximising agents.
Priests in these religious institutions could also have their own interests and agenda. They may choose to maximise their own reputation, wealth, political and social influence and so forth, not always in the line with the teachings of the religion. Not all monks are necessarily fanatic religious devotees; they could be blatant cynics acted upon in the name of religion. This is exactly the corruption within a religious institution.
All in all, religious institutions could undertake activities, which considerably departed from the teachings and values of its religion. This has been a constant phenomenon through the history of human civilisation and one should not be surprised by it.
3) Vested interests
For the established Japanese temples in mediaeval time, there were simply too many of vested interests: for example, the revenue you gain from your shōen (i.e. landholdings) and non-liability to government taxations; your privilege that criminal activities committed in your territory will be persecuted by agents no other than yourself; other economic resources you control, such as those from the jinaimachi; military power which could protect your status and interest and help you to expand. Only active political engagement could possibly ensure that these vested interests were protected, let alone advanced. Refraining from protecting these vested interests were in itself constituting a cost to the temple and its sect, since this means that influence of your temple/sect relative to other competing temples and sects will decline, and this is in the long-run unsustainable and non-conducive to development of your temple. Therefore, there was a competitive environment in which all temples strived to do well in the political and economic realm to maintain their establishment and avoid to be left behind.
The temptation of these vested interests were so great, that along with a strong embedded political tradition which could help to rationalise and justify political engagement (against Buddhist teachings), entailed that all Buddhist temples would participate politics actively.
4) Moral decadency and moral hazard
In the mediaeval period, so many priests were actually morally corrupt: they had no moral superiority to the ordinary people, only that they could have the status of being a priest and acted in the name of religion with a pretence. Moral decadency, moral degeneration, corruption, and blatant abuse of power, rendered Japanese Buddhism lost its status of spiritual centre and moral foundation of Japanese society (this was later officially gave away to Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucianism (朱熹新儒家）under the Tokugawa (徳川) bakufu. It could be said that Japanese Buddhism had digged their own tomb and destroyed upon themselves.
One reason to explain moral decadency is the idea of “moral hazard”. It is interesting to see the reason why Honganji (prime temple of Jōdo Shin-Shū) was so political. One reason is due to the very teaching of Pure Land Buddhism: followers were to read Amida Buddha’s name on the daily basis, and would be salved by doing this very act; for the Japanese monks and many ordinary believers these were arguably the only religious practices necessary to ensure nirvana in afterlife: few other moral constraints in conduct were imposed. Thus Japanese monks could marry, consume meat, accumulate wealth and occasionally took actions which were completely discouraged or forbidden by social norms. This is a typical example of moral hazard due to an easy guarantee of happiness in afterlife by simplistic practice – an easy permission to the Pure Land became a permission of abuse of power and moral position in this life. For a Chinese perspective, this version of Buddhism is absolutely distorted and unjustified.
日本佛教与政治的关系简谈 （三） 后话 江户时代到今天的日本佛教与政治 （一稿）
Japanese Buddhism and Politics: after mediaeval period.
Japanese Buddhism was put to the margin after the suppression of temples’ power by daimyōu Oda Nobunaga （織田信長）. Oda Nobunaga actually defeated the Ishiyama Honganji (石山本願寺) (which is also the centre of the Anti-Nobunaga League （反信長包囲網）) and burned Tendai Shū’（天台宗）s Enryakuji on the Moutain of Hiei (比叡山) to the ground, he set forth a series of policies and establish new laws to reduce temples’ privalages, and were implemented and followed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi （豊臣秀吉） and Tokugawa Ieyasu （徳川家康）resepctively. After the Azuchi-Momoyama （安土桃山）period buddihst temples lost much of the pillars of their political power, i.e. sōhei, landholdings and economic resources, and thus lost much of their autonomy and independence, The relationship between Buddhism and the state, society, was redefined: Buddhism again became subservient to the state and subjected to central authority. It was actually transformed into a means of the state’s control over civil society (household system in Edo period undertake Tokugawa bakufu). In late Edo （江户） period and Meiji period there had been a rise of Nativism/Nationalism, and Shinto was restored to its primacy and became state religion of Japan, until the end of World War II.
The end of World War II brought forth a wave of “new religions” （新宗教）, amongst which several were Buddhist. The most important one was the Soka Gakkai （創価学会）, a lay offshoot of Nichren Shoshu （日蓮正宗）. Soka Gakkai has been enormously political, and unprecedentedly founded a political party, the Komeito （公明党）(in 1964), to advance its own agenda in parliamentary politics. Komeito has been very successful, placed a real alternative to the traditional left (though it has now been more centre-right and conservative), but also elicited new concerns from the Japanese public that to what extent religion should be associated with politics. Komeito has later split with Soka Gakkai (and Soka Gakkai itself has split with Nichren Shoshu) to be “politically independent from religious influence”, but the connexion between the two bodies remains considerably substantial; the majority of votes of Komeito are still members of Soka Gakkai.
The advance of Soka Gakkai and Komeito signalled a new age of Japanese Buddhism’s engagement of state politics, via the channel of parliamentary democracy. This, however, is but a continuation of the tradition of political engagement and/or activism in Japanese Buddhism
偷窥
