On understanding japanese religion / Joseph M. Kitagawa.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kitagawa, Joseph M. (Joseph Mitsuo), 1915-1992, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religion.

Japan--Religion.

Japan.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (378 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [1987]

Summary:

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.

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

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780691224237

0691224234

OCLC:

1237367972