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ahorbinskiBibliographic Data: Ketelaar, James Edward. Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Main Argument: Arguing that heretics and martyrs are in fact the same, and that "the heretic as martyr provides, that is, a position from which to carry out a critique of the formulation and possibilities of law in operation within a given society" (ix), Ketelaar argues that despite violent persecution in the early Meiji period, "Meiji Buddhists succeeded…not merely in refiguring Buddhism from the heretical to the martyred; they also succeeded in producing a 'new Buddhism' (shin Bukkyô) that in fact has come to be viewed as a bastion of 'true Japanese culture'" (x).
Historiographical Engagement: Ketelaar has read quite a lot of theory--Kant makes more than a few salutary appearances--and he is arguing with several Japanese historians, most notably Tsuda Sôkichi. The book also bears the traces of Gluck's Japan's Modern Myths and of Harootunian's Things Seen and Unseen.
Preface: Argument, Sources, Examples In this preface, Ketelaar argues briefly that "the entire social and cultural fabric of mid- to late-19thC Japan underwent an extremely volatile transformation" and that "the conceptions and policies directed toward the religious life in general and the Buddhist life in particular were themselves both constructive of and derived from this volatile extended historical moment" (xi). Speaking of these figuraitons of religion, he also quotes Kant to the effect that, "the intention of all of them is to manage to their own advantage [something they perceive as] the invisible Power which presides over the destiny of men; they differ merely in their conceptions of how to understand this feat" (ibid).
Chapter 1: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter explores the Tokugawa antecedents of anti-Buddhist persecution in the Meiji period, concluding that "the pervasive nature of anti-Buddhist ideas during the 18th and 19thC in Japan contributed to an environment conducive to the radical repositioning of religious institutions within the social order" which "served in fact to spark the attempt to define the 'religious' itself" (41, emphasis original). As a consequence of this definition--which was by necessity construction--the idea of "religion" came to include "certain universal 'truths' that all religions 'share'" (ibid), and equally importantly, in the separation of "Shinto" from "Buddhism," each needed the other to define itself going forward.
Chapter 2: Argument, Sources, Examples In this chapter Ketelaar discusses the historical specifics of anti-Buddhist policies before, during, and after the Meiji Restoration, arguing that the persecutions left their strongest traces in the systems of religious education, different religious histories, and legislation dealing precisely with sectarian institutions. Ketelaar also discusses the 1871 incident of the Buddhist martyrs at Mikawa, and concludes finally that their transition from heretics to martyrs was a sign of the recognition by mid-Meiji that Buddhism did have a legitimate place in Japanese history, culture, and social life, but at a price: namely, the tacit recognition that the state violence directed against Buddhism had been fundamentally legitimate.
Chapter 3: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter examines, at arguably greater length than necessary, the "construction and destruction of a national doctrine" in the 1870s as the Ministry of Ceremonials (Rites) was disbanded in favor of the Ministry of Doctrine, which too eventually went the way of the dodo, in no small part because the most powerful Buddhist sects eventually stopped participating in its programs. This withdrawal, according to Ketelaar, also "contributed to…the emergence of a new discourse on the freedom of religion: the separation of religion and rule" (131). As part of Buddhism's efforts to transform itself into a modern and cosmopolitan institution, "Buddhism claimed, here parting with the Ministry of Doctrine's strategy, a transcendent, unificatory epistemology not bound by any particular chronology or temporality that was, however, simultaneously present within any particular historical place" (134, emphasis original).
Chapter 4: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter explores the participation of Japanese Buddhists in the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions, part of the Chicago World's Fair that famously ranked human races and societies on an evolutionary scale laid out along the Midway, leading to the unironically named White City, the summit of human civilization. Of these two groups it may fairly be said that each was making use of the other: although the participation of the Japanese Buddhists in the semi-scripted discourse of the Parliament confirmed the chauvinistic Christian conceptions of its organizers in their own minds, for the Japanese their participation "was touted as having refuted conceptions of Buddhism as a historically artificial construct, as nihilism, as idol worship, and as anti- or a-social," and the resulting image of Buddhism as "an international…and sophisticated evangelical tool" was "put to immediate use in the domestic reconstruction of images of modern and nationalistic Buddhism" (171). In the minds of these Buddhists, the West was reconfigured as "further east."
Chapter 5: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter explores the construction of Buddhist histories of Japan and of "Buddhist Bibles," i.e. relatively concise compilations of key Buddhist texts, in the mid- to late Meiji period. In the histories, "the projection of a Buddhist historical consciousness across such broad spatial and chronological terrain [from ancient India to modern Japan] had as a fully intended consequence the resturrection of the political and social status of institutional Buddhism within Japan" (206). The accusations of Buddhism's alterity were skillfully parlayed into the image of Buddhism predating the founding of Japan, but bringing civilization to Japan and becoming Japanese at the same time as Buddhism in Japan reached its full flower: that alterity was the reason for its dynamic role in Japanese history.
Conclusion: Argument, Sources, Examples Ketelaar argues that Buddhism's attempt to rehabilitate itself as a Japanese institution succeeded not wisely but too well in light of the willing collaboration of Buddhist priests in Japanese imperialism, beginning with the Sino-Japanese War. Buddhism thus sacrificed the position of externality, and of potential critique, that Tominaga Nakamoto and Hirai Kinzô, the book's two heroes, so valued in it and in religion as such. Instead, the "figurations of Buddhism" circulating at the time were directed either towards the confirmation of the state's hegemonic claims (and the place of Buddhism therein) or the "salvation of the people," to the extent that the persecutions of the early Meiji period are nearly totally forgotten. Other readings of historical figures and events, however, are possible.
Critical assessment: This is an interesting and sophisticated book, with a welcome dose of critical theory and an interesting topic. Ketelaar's work refutes several commonplace assumptions about Meiji Japan and fills in some gaps notably overlooked by other scholars such as Carol Gluck. There are a few points where he doesn't clarify whether he's adopting his sources' terminology or not, the most notable begin his persistent habit of calling Theravada Buddhism by the now-deprecated term "Hinayana," and having read more recent scholarship I wonder whether at times he might not be better served by talking about Buddhisms, plural. But this is, overall, an excellent little book.
Further reading: B.D. Victoria, Zen at War; Helen Hardacre, Shinto and the State
Meta notes: I was expecting more actual heretics. Also, if you're going to have a black and white photo on the cover of your book, it needs to be a good one.
Main Argument: Arguing that heretics and martyrs are in fact the same, and that "the heretic as martyr provides, that is, a position from which to carry out a critique of the formulation and possibilities of law in operation within a given society" (ix), Ketelaar argues that despite violent persecution in the early Meiji period, "Meiji Buddhists succeeded…not merely in refiguring Buddhism from the heretical to the martyred; they also succeeded in producing a 'new Buddhism' (shin Bukkyô) that in fact has come to be viewed as a bastion of 'true Japanese culture'" (x).
Historiographical Engagement: Ketelaar has read quite a lot of theory--Kant makes more than a few salutary appearances--and he is arguing with several Japanese historians, most notably Tsuda Sôkichi. The book also bears the traces of Gluck's Japan's Modern Myths and of Harootunian's Things Seen and Unseen.
Preface: Argument, Sources, Examples In this preface, Ketelaar argues briefly that "the entire social and cultural fabric of mid- to late-19thC Japan underwent an extremely volatile transformation" and that "the conceptions and policies directed toward the religious life in general and the Buddhist life in particular were themselves both constructive of and derived from this volatile extended historical moment" (xi). Speaking of these figuraitons of religion, he also quotes Kant to the effect that, "the intention of all of them is to manage to their own advantage [something they perceive as] the invisible Power which presides over the destiny of men; they differ merely in their conceptions of how to understand this feat" (ibid).
Chapter 1: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter explores the Tokugawa antecedents of anti-Buddhist persecution in the Meiji period, concluding that "the pervasive nature of anti-Buddhist ideas during the 18th and 19thC in Japan contributed to an environment conducive to the radical repositioning of religious institutions within the social order" which "served in fact to spark the attempt to define the 'religious' itself" (41, emphasis original). As a consequence of this definition--which was by necessity construction--the idea of "religion" came to include "certain universal 'truths' that all religions 'share'" (ibid), and equally importantly, in the separation of "Shinto" from "Buddhism," each needed the other to define itself going forward.
Chapter 2: Argument, Sources, Examples In this chapter Ketelaar discusses the historical specifics of anti-Buddhist policies before, during, and after the Meiji Restoration, arguing that the persecutions left their strongest traces in the systems of religious education, different religious histories, and legislation dealing precisely with sectarian institutions. Ketelaar also discusses the 1871 incident of the Buddhist martyrs at Mikawa, and concludes finally that their transition from heretics to martyrs was a sign of the recognition by mid-Meiji that Buddhism did have a legitimate place in Japanese history, culture, and social life, but at a price: namely, the tacit recognition that the state violence directed against Buddhism had been fundamentally legitimate.
Chapter 3: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter examines, at arguably greater length than necessary, the "construction and destruction of a national doctrine" in the 1870s as the Ministry of Ceremonials (Rites) was disbanded in favor of the Ministry of Doctrine, which too eventually went the way of the dodo, in no small part because the most powerful Buddhist sects eventually stopped participating in its programs. This withdrawal, according to Ketelaar, also "contributed to…the emergence of a new discourse on the freedom of religion: the separation of religion and rule" (131). As part of Buddhism's efforts to transform itself into a modern and cosmopolitan institution, "Buddhism claimed, here parting with the Ministry of Doctrine's strategy, a transcendent, unificatory epistemology not bound by any particular chronology or temporality that was, however, simultaneously present within any particular historical place" (134, emphasis original).
Chapter 4: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter explores the participation of Japanese Buddhists in the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions, part of the Chicago World's Fair that famously ranked human races and societies on an evolutionary scale laid out along the Midway, leading to the unironically named White City, the summit of human civilization. Of these two groups it may fairly be said that each was making use of the other: although the participation of the Japanese Buddhists in the semi-scripted discourse of the Parliament confirmed the chauvinistic Christian conceptions of its organizers in their own minds, for the Japanese their participation "was touted as having refuted conceptions of Buddhism as a historically artificial construct, as nihilism, as idol worship, and as anti- or a-social," and the resulting image of Buddhism as "an international…and sophisticated evangelical tool" was "put to immediate use in the domestic reconstruction of images of modern and nationalistic Buddhism" (171). In the minds of these Buddhists, the West was reconfigured as "further east."
Chapter 5: Argument, Sources, Examples This chapter explores the construction of Buddhist histories of Japan and of "Buddhist Bibles," i.e. relatively concise compilations of key Buddhist texts, in the mid- to late Meiji period. In the histories, "the projection of a Buddhist historical consciousness across such broad spatial and chronological terrain [from ancient India to modern Japan] had as a fully intended consequence the resturrection of the political and social status of institutional Buddhism within Japan" (206). The accusations of Buddhism's alterity were skillfully parlayed into the image of Buddhism predating the founding of Japan, but bringing civilization to Japan and becoming Japanese at the same time as Buddhism in Japan reached its full flower: that alterity was the reason for its dynamic role in Japanese history.
Conclusion: Argument, Sources, Examples Ketelaar argues that Buddhism's attempt to rehabilitate itself as a Japanese institution succeeded not wisely but too well in light of the willing collaboration of Buddhist priests in Japanese imperialism, beginning with the Sino-Japanese War. Buddhism thus sacrificed the position of externality, and of potential critique, that Tominaga Nakamoto and Hirai Kinzô, the book's two heroes, so valued in it and in religion as such. Instead, the "figurations of Buddhism" circulating at the time were directed either towards the confirmation of the state's hegemonic claims (and the place of Buddhism therein) or the "salvation of the people," to the extent that the persecutions of the early Meiji period are nearly totally forgotten. Other readings of historical figures and events, however, are possible.
Critical assessment: This is an interesting and sophisticated book, with a welcome dose of critical theory and an interesting topic. Ketelaar's work refutes several commonplace assumptions about Meiji Japan and fills in some gaps notably overlooked by other scholars such as Carol Gluck. There are a few points where he doesn't clarify whether he's adopting his sources' terminology or not, the most notable begin his persistent habit of calling Theravada Buddhism by the now-deprecated term "Hinayana," and having read more recent scholarship I wonder whether at times he might not be better served by talking about Buddhisms, plural. But this is, overall, an excellent little book.
Further reading: B.D. Victoria, Zen at War; Helen Hardacre, Shinto and the State
Meta notes: I was expecting more actual heretics. Also, if you're going to have a black and white photo on the cover of your book, it needs to be a good one.