Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to clarify and compare the narrative mechanisms informing Western and Japanese depictions of the other’s practices of dying for the faith. Here I focus on fudaraku and martyrdom, in order to shed new light on the encounters between Christianity and Buddhism in early modern Japan.

Paper long abstract:

The Jesuits introduced to Japan the concept of martyrdom during the last decades of the 16th century. However, dying for the faith was not unfamiliar to Japanese thought. Early missionaries recognized something similar to Christian martyrdom in fudaraku sailing, an ancient Buddhist practice of believers sailing out to sea before throwing themselves into the sea to reach Buddha’s promised land. Missionaries nonetheless depicted this practice in their correspondence as “demonic,” eliminating any possible ontological assimilation to the Catholic creed. On the other hand, the Nagasaki Kōfukuji hikki, a record of sermons given by the monk Sōsai at Nagasaki (1647), finds similarities between the Christian practice of martyrdom and the Pure Land Buddhist monks who died in the name of Amida. And yet, anti-Christian texts of the first half of the 17th century, including Sōsai‘s later work, often depicted martyrdom as pernicious, irrational, and removed from Buddhist teachings.

My analytical focus falls on the depiction of practices such as fudaraku and martyrdom found in the Jesuit correspondence and the work of Sōsai respectively. Even though scholars have before now analyzed Jesuit descriptions of hodaraku, they did not address the theological foundations of these Western accounts, and their political implications. Nor is there any substantial comparative work on the differences and similarities between these European descriptions and the accounts of Sōsai on Christian martyrdom.

This paper aims to clarify, deconstruct, and then compare the narrative mechanisms informing European and Japanese accounts of the taking of one’s own life and dying for the faith by addressing the following questions: What kind of rhetoric is behind these accounts? What is the relation between the rhetoric chosen by the authors of these texts and the historical, political, and social background they were living in? Why did both Jesuit priests and Buddhist monks dismiss any ontological similarity between practices such as fudaraku and martyrdom? By exploring these issues, I hope to shed new light on the narratives that helped construct the Western and Japanese images of the other during the early encounter between Christianity and Buddhism in Japan.

Paper short abstract:

This paper covers how Japanese new religious groups keep their founders and themselves relevant after death through hagiographical accounts using the example of the new religion Nakayama Shingoshōshū.

Paper long abstract:

Existing research on new religious movements in Japan has mainly focused on founders during their lifetimes. Their relevance to the religious community after death, however, has been largely ignored. During the founder’s lifetime, a new religion can prosper due to the founder’s charisma created by their spiritual awakening and subsequent activities. After their death, these experiences and activities are recounted as the founder’s life story, which becomes an integral part of the group’s narrative. One example of this phenomenon is Yasaka Kakue, the founder of Nakayama Shingoshōshū, a Japanese new religion of Buddhist lineage primarily active in northern Kyushu. He founded this religion in 1912 after experiencing a vision of the prominent Japanese Buddhist saint, Kōbō Daishi, who tasked Kakue with spreading his teachings. Visions and spirit possessions called ojihi, which Kakue frequently experienced throughout his life, have become a crucial part of his group’s central beliefs and rituals, with the founder predominantly functioning as their source. Taking up prominent sources of Kakue’s hagiography, such as the Shūso Shōninden (Biography of the Founder), alongside results from field research on the ojihi and other rituals, this paper seeks to shed light on the ways in which the founder is kept relevant in Nakayama Shingoshōshū. The paper will show that through his life story, Kakue is kept alive in three specific ways—as a charismatic leader, a role model, and ultimately a divine being for the members of his group. Furthermore, the life story also defines the role of the founder in many aspects of the group’s ritual culture. This research on Yasaka Kakue thus offers a useful framework for studying hagiographical accounts of founders of new religions in general who lived on through stories and rituals after their death. In doing so, it shows one important way in which modern religious movements attempt to remain relevant long after their founders die.