# Brian Victoria

Brian Andre Victoria (born 1939) is an American educator, Doctor of Philosophy, writer and Buddhist priest in the Sōtō Zen sect. He has published numerous works on the relationship of religion to violence, with a focus on the relationship between Buddhism and Japanese militarism around World War II.

## Education

Victoria is a native of Omaha, Nebraska. He graduated in 1961 from Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska. He trained at the Sōtō Zen monastery of Eihei-ji and holds a M.A. in Buddhist Studies from the Sōtō Zen–affiliated Komazawa University in Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Religious Studies at Temple University.

## Vietnam era

Victoria was a war protester during the Vietnam War, specifically as a conscientious objector.
In a 2016 interview he explained how his views were influenced by his time studying in Europe in 1959–60. During a visit to Germany, he saw the lingering effects of World War II, including a bombed church in Hanover displaying photographs of Nazi soldiers with the inscription “for God and country.” This experience led him to question the relationship between religion and warfare.
   "I was contemplating, trying to figure out, what was I going to do when I returned to the US, because it was time for me to sign up for the draft. Unusually for our country, it was not at war at the time; it was in-between the Korean War and what, of course, became the Vietnam War. So it wasn’t the case of a particular war, but the question was, would I be willing to kill my fellow human beings on behalf of the officers in charge of me if I were to be drafted?"
Upon returning to the United States, these reflections contributed to his decision to formally declare himself a conscientious objector, believing he could not participate in armed conflict. As a member of the Methodist Church, he received support in making this decision based on personal conscience. Seeking an alternative to military service, Victoria moved to Japan in 1961 as a short-term missionary. While there, he became involved in anti-war efforts, including counseling U.S. military personnel stationed at Yokosuka Naval Base who opposed the Vietnam War. It was during this time in Japan, he encountered works on Zen Buddhism. His activism eventually led to legal challenges, and his deportation from Japan, after which he continued advocating for pacifism and human rights.

## Affiliation

Victoria has taught Japanese language and culture at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Creighton University, and Bucknell University in the United States and lectured in the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Auckland. He was a senior lecturer in the Centre in Asian Studies at the University of Adelaide in South Australia. He has also been Yehan Numata Distinguished Visiting Professor, Buddhist Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in Honolulu. From 2005 to 2013, he was a professor of Japanese studies and director of the Antioch Education Abroad “Japan and Its Buddhist Traditions Program” at Antioch University in Yellow Springs, OH. Since 2013, he is a Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Oxford and a visiting research fellow at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto.

## Zen at War

First published in 1997, Zen at War is based on the work of Japanese scholars and Victoria's own studies of original Japanese documents. It describes the influence of state policy on Japanese Buddhism before and during WWII and conversely the influence of Zen philosophy on the Japanese military. The book has been hailed as a major contribution to a previously unexamined aspect of Japanese religious history, and criticized for imposing anachronistic values when evaluating the words and deeds of the time.

## Criticisms

There are a number of criticisms directed at Victoria's methodology in critiquing a number of individuals. Most prominently in Zen at War, but also in subsequent articles. The criticisms have focused on Victoria's portrayals of D. T. Suzuki, Kōdō Sawaki, and Tsunesaburō Makiguchi.
Henry Schliff of the University of Colorado, in reviewing the essay compilation Buddhist Warfare, cites the methodology of Victoria's essay, “A Buddhological Critique of 'Soldier-Zen' in Wartime Japan", as the one major flaw in the book:
   Rather this essay struck me as incongruous with every other essay in the text in terms of methodology. To use Victoria’s own words, he has “left the realm of ‘objective scholarship’ to pursue a partisan agenda”. True to this claim, the bulk of Victoria’s article traces a trajectory of progressively essentialist language that by implication would invalidate not only the heterodoxical views expressed by Zen militarists during World War II but also nullifies many orthodox systems of Mahāyānist philosophy that developed in Northern India, Nepal, and Tibet...Victoria’s presentation speaks rather as a categorical indictment of the whole of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Analogically, this would be like a Dominican priest arguing that all Catholics regardless of their historical, cultural, or doctrinal orientation had fundamentally misunderstood the concept of the Holy Spirit. The methodological error appears in Victoria’s argument when he attempts to use militant Zen in the context of wartime Japan to illustrate what he sees as pervasive doctrinal errors throughout the history of Mahāyāna Buddhism. This reformist approach noticeably contrasts with the other essays in Buddhist Warfare, which consistently maintains a high level of academic rigor regardless of any subjective biases.

## Works
### Books

* 外人であり、禅坊主であり… [A foreigner, and a Zen priest] (in Japanese). San-ichi Shobo. 1971. ASIN B000J9HRNK.
* (With Yuho Yokoi) Zen Master Dogen: An Introduction with Selected Writings. Weatherhill. 1976. ISBN 978-0834801165.
* Zen at war (2nd ed.). Lanham e.a.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2006. ISBN 978-0742539266.
* Zen War Stories. Routledge. 2012. ISBN 978-0700715800.
* Zen Terror in Prewar Japan: Portrait of an Assassin. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2020. ISBN 978-1538131664.

### Articles

* "When God(s) and Buddhas Go to War." In War and State Terrorism: The United States, Japan, and the Asia-Pacific in the Long Twentieth Century. Edited by Mark Selden and Alvin Y. So. 2003. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pages 91–118. ISBN 978-0742523913
* (With Muneo Narusawa) "'War is a Crime': Takenaka Shōgen and Buddhist Resistance in the Asia-Pacific War and Today" (竹中彰元「戦争は罪悪である]　アジア太平洋戦争当時と今日における仏教徒の抵抗). The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 12, Issue 37, Number 4, September 15, 2014.
* "Sōka Gakkai Founder, Makiguchi Tsunesaburō, A Man of Peace?" (創価学会の創立者・牧口恒三郎　平和を愛する男？). The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 12, Issue 37, Number 3, September 15, 2014.
* "Zen Masters on the Battlefield (Part II)" (戦場の禅師（下）). The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 11, Issue 27, Number 4, July 7, 2014.
* "Zen Masters on the Battlefield (Part I)" (戦場の禅師（上）). The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 11, Issue 24, Number 3, June 16, 2014.
* "A Zen Nazi in Wartime Japan: Count Dürckheim and his Sources—D.T. Suzuki, Yasutani Haku’un and Eugen Herrigel" (戦中日本におけるあるナチス禅宗徒 デュルクハイム伯爵の情報源　鈴木大拙、安谷白雲、オイゲン・ヘリゲル). The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 3, No. 2, January 20, 2014.
* "D.T. Suzuki, Zen and the Nazis" (鈴木大拙　禅　ナチス（上）). The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 11, Issue 43, Number 4, October 28, 2013.
* "Zen as a Cult of Death in the Wartime Writings of D.T. Suzuki" (死の信仰としての禅　鈴木大拙、戦時下の著述). The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 11, Issue 30, Number 4, August 5, 2013.
* "Buddhism and Disasters: From World War II to Fukushima" (仏教と災害−−第二次世界大戦から福島まで). The Asia-Pacific Journal", n.d.
* "Karma, War and Inequality in Twentieth Century Japan". The Asia-Pacific Journal, n.d.