Paper short abstract:

Focusing on the work of Sakaino Kōyō (1871-1933), this paper explores the development of "Chinese Buddhism" as a historiographical category during the early twentieth-century, examining a heretofore rather understudied aspect of the reimagination of China in the context of modern Japanese Empire.

Paper long abstract:

As pointed out in the now classic monograph by Stefan Tanaka (Japan's Orient, 1993), in the context of the modern Japanese Empire, China was constructed as an "other" to serve as a foil for Japanese self-representations. That is, China was reimagined as Japan's "past" and referred to as Shina, a term which is now seen as derogatory by many both in the archipelago and elsewhere. While there are already a number of studies exploring this process of reimagination between the Meiji and Showa eras, most of them focus on the development of "oriental studies" (tōyōgaku) as a discipline and the scholars involved in it. Very few shed light on another very important aspect, namely the role of Buddhists in the making of Shina. This paper explores how Buddhists discussed China in their historiography of "Chinese Buddhism" (Shina Bukkyō), a category set up through a global lens in order to distinguish in essentialist terms East Asian continental Buddhism from that of other geographical locations such as India and Japan. In more concrete terms, the paper focuses on Sakaino Kōyō (1871-1933), a Buddhist scholar and Jōdo Shin priest who played a central role in depicting for Japanese audiences the general aspects of the Chinese Buddhist past. Besides being a somewhat popular historian, Sakaino was also known as one of the main leaders of the New Buddhist Movement (shinbukkyō undō), which lasted from 1899 to 1915. It is therefore worth noting that his criticism of "old Buddhism" (kyūbukkyō) —especially its supposed lack of a "sound faith" (kenzen naru shinkō) —is also present in his depiction of China, as the latter becomes the very embodiment of such critiques. That is, while "philosophically" sound, Buddhism in China was found to be lacking in terms of "faith," a key term very positively connoted for late-Meiji Buddhist scholars. With overlapping depictions of an ideal Japan-centered Buddhist future and an antiquated Chinese Buddhist past, Sakaino's work represents an important chapter in the larger issue of the repositioning of China in Imperial Japan intellectual space.