Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine how the human-animal border was questioned in the face of colliding Buddhist and Christian ways of knowing during the early modern period, as well as how animal emotionality was depicted by artists and writers of the milieu.

Paper long abstract:

“Buddhism sees the fifty-two species as being of the same nature as man, there being no separation between even the smallest insect and us living today. Why then do you speak of man and beast in separate terms?”

Fukansai Habian’s Myōtei mondō (Myotei Dialogues, 1605) features discussions between two women of different faiths, Yūtei, a converted Christian, and Myōshū, a Buddhist. In one episode, the two women discuss whether or not animals should experience the afterlife. Yūtei claims that Buddhism is erroneous for including animals in salvation and perceiving no hierarchy among species. Meanwhile, Myōshū argues for a multispecies "nature-as-principle," a dehierarchized oneness that is shared by all lifeforms. But this is not to say that animals were completely denigrated and dismissed from the Catholic worldview. On the contrary, animals were a central part of Spanish and Portuguese diplomatic and evangelizing activities, as they were powerful symbols of the Iberians’ vast territorial reach. These animals included an elephant named Don Pedro, an Arabian stallion, tigers, civet cats, and peacocks. Many of these appear as emotive subjects on nanban "Southern Barbarian" folding screens painted by the Kano School, indicating Japanese appreciation of these exotic lifeforms. This paper will examine how the status of the animal transformed in the face of colliding Buddhist and Christian ways of knowing, as well as how animal emotion was depicted by artists and writers of the milieu.