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# Constructing a transnational community via a Japanese new religion: the case of a Tenrikyo center in a Parisian suburb

Margaret Brady

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Margaret Brady. Constructing a transnational community via a Japanese new religion: the case of a Tenrikyo center in a Parisian suburb. Humanities and Social Sciences. Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS Paris), 2020. English. NNT: tel-03962189

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MARGARET BRADY

Constructing a transnational community via
a Japanese new religion:
the case of a Tenrikyo center in a Parisian
suburb

Thèse dirigée par: Véronique Bénéï

Date de soutenance : le 17 décembre 2020

Rapporteur 1 Michael Houseman, École Pratique des Hautes Études
2 Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, Williams College

Jury
1 Emma Gobin, Université Paris 8
2 Jean-Bernard Ouédraogo, CNRS & EHESS
3 Véronique Bénéï, CNRS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To say that the journey involved in my research and the composition of this thesis would not have been possible without the help and support of others would be a vast understatement. First and foremost, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my directrice, Véronique Bénéti, for guiding me through all the stages involved in this process. I am particularly thankful to her for the formation she provided in helping me attune and give credence to what the body, the senses, and emotion can teach us about the social realities present in our world and how to think about putting these often unspoken parts of the human experience into words. Although I have only touched the surface of this way of exploring the collective and individual realities that this method can provide and how to convey insights gained from this level of focus to others, I feel very fortunate to have been directed in approaching the world and the academic discipline of anthropology aimed at attempting to better understand the humans who inhabit it in this manner. I must also thank her for her patience, understanding, and encouragement and for remaining consistent in her willingness to provide support through all the chapters these years of study have entailed.

Secondly, but also firstly because gratitude cannot always be ranked in numerical order, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the members of my research population who welcomed my presence and were open to helping me with this academic endeavor. I am also grateful for the friendships that came about, and the many insights into the world and how one may go about living joyously in it (which, as I will discuss in my text, is the main aim of Tenrikyo) that I gained through our shared time which I will no doubt carry with me for the rest of my life. I would like to specifically thank the people I refer to in my text as “Mr. Sugimoto” and his wife “Yuko”<fnref n="1" />, who were positioned according to Tenrikyo tradition as my spiritual parent(s)<fnref n="2" /> and according to the anthropological model as my key informants, for figuratively holding my hand in learning about Tenrikyo and the social world(s) of it that they inhabited and for remaining ever-willing to respond to my many questions to the best of their ability. Additionally, I would also like to specifically thank the head of TEC and his wife, who I refer to in my text as Mr.

<footnote n="1">¹ As I will again note in the main text of this document, my use of pseudonyms for people included in my study and my abstinence from using their real names, even in this acknowledgements section, is my own choice rather than reflective of their request for this.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² The facultative “s” is something I will explain in the main body of my text.</footnote>
Kawakubo and Eriko, for their openness to my academic interest in the site they were charged
with overseeing, as well as for the warmth and generosity they provided.

As may very well be strikingly evident by my choosing to focus on the concept of community in
my thesis, community and having a sense of it is something I personally ascribe great importance
to in a way far beyond intellectual theorization about it. Thus, I would like to thank the organizers
of two seminars that I regularly attended over the course of numerous years during my doctoral
studies, which in addition to the wide range of research put forth in them that I benefited from,
was also motivated by the grounding sense of an academic community that they provided. This
expression of thanks is directed to Emma Gobin, Viola Teisenhoffer, and Anne-Marie Losonczy
for organizing “Approches Comparées du New Age” and to Marika Moisseff and Michael
Houseman for organizing the atelier “Nouvelles Formes de Médiation Relationnelle.”

I would like to thank my thesis committee member, Jean-Bernard Ouédraogo, who was part of
my doctoral process from the beginning by listening to the presentation of my initial research
proposal and providing advice that I carried with me into what my research focus developed into.
I am also grateful for the advice he provided through our thesis committee meetings and
occasional impromptu chats that contributed to the development of my thesis. I would also like to
again extend my thanks to Emma Gobin, this time for serving on my thesis committee and for the
recommendations she provided me with that were helpful in the shaping of my ideas and my text.

I also wish to extend my gratitude to my many colleagues who provided me with company in the
fifth-floor student work room for their presence and comradery. Additionally, although I will not
mention by name the many researchers I got to know throughout this process, I would like to
nonetheless express my appreciation to them in this acknowledgements section for the fascinating
insights into different research contexts and different theoretical approaches and ways of doing
research that our interactions provided.

Additionally, I also direct my gratitude to Masato Kato, who was well into his own doctoral
studies focused on TEC and Tenrikyo's presence in Europe when my own research on this topic
began, partially inspired through our initial exchanges. As is demonstrated through my ample use
of his texts in my thesis, particularly his thesis that was successfully defended several years
before my own thesis came to completion, I greatly benefitted from the wealth of information he
put forth. I would also like to express my thanks to Madeline Scully for her help in editing my
thesis with an attentive eye and a drive to get my text to where it needed to be within a limited
timeframe amidst the other things she had going on. Bethan Whelan and Thomas Witzeling's
kindness in helping me with the French summary of this text is another crucial component for
which I am extremely appreciative. I also benefitted from financial assistance from the IIAC
(EHESS) for my fieldwork trip to Japan in 2016 and my attendance of the EASR conference in
2017, both of which were enriching experiences.

Moreover, the behind the scenes support I received from those close to me who accompanied me
through this process was a key part of it, including in the formation of ideas that I put forth in my
thesis. First, I must thank my mother, I will not say more than this because there is simply too
much to say. I also am grateful for my father's encouragement and for reminding me that a
thousand-mile journey takes place one step at a time. Continuing with my familial thanks, I
extend my gratitude to my brother for his encouragement and for the discussions we shared along
the way. I also wish to express my gratitude to Jackie Rogers, Shanna Allen, Audrey Malone,
Cynthia Stinnett, Randi Pucak, Yaya Guisse, Beate Strøm, and to be sure, Hannah Sanders for
accompanying me on this journey and the many conversations we shared over the course of this
process, bits of which are sprinkled throughout this thesis. Christine Lasee's help with the final
part of getting this document finalized is also an interwoven part of this text through both the
motivation she provided and the numerous issues involved in the final part of putting together
this document that she assisted me with. Additionally, I must acknowledge Yael Dansac and Jung
Yeon Kim, who in addition to being friends were academic colleagues with research topics close
enough to my own for our conversations on our respective research projects to provide fruitful
inspiration for my own study.

Needless to say, a great deal of people have been omitted from this textual outpouring of
gratitude. I am also thankful to the many unnamed people who provided support, illuminative
conversations, and a multitude of perspectives all along the way who contributed to the formation
of my ideas.
ABSTRACT

This thesis discusses an eclectic conglomeration of people connected in various ways to the
principal European site of the Japanese new religion of Tenrikyo, Tenrikyo Europe Centre (TEC),
located in a Parisian suburb. I refer to this collection of interconnected people as the “TEC
community” and it is on this “community” that my textual exploration is focused. This term
imposed itself from my observations and perspective after several years of fieldwork to succinctly
describe my research population. My usage of this notion is meant to highlight the social
complexities based at, but not exclusive to, TEC that came together to form a larger social whole.
Although TEC itself was based in a Parisian suburb and the majority of its key actors were
Japanese, the “TEC community” spanned beyond the Paris region and included various
nationalities, countries of residence, and even religious identities. Despite such spatial, personal,
and social diversities, the social actors included in my study constituted an unbound
“community” with complex, ever-developing webs of connection.

In addition to an introductory grounding section, my text is divided into three overarching
sections based on my fieldwork. First, I discuss the local side of the “TEC community” that
involved mainly people living in the Paris area. This principally included locally based followers,
young adult missionaries from Japan on several year assignments, and local non-faith based
social affiliates. Thereafter, I direct focus to the broader European continent, addressing both the
presence of this religion in various European countries and the unification of these religious
actors at TEC. The last section shifts focus to the pilgrimage town of Tenri City in Japan, where
Tenrikyo is spiritually and organizationally rooted. Although my research was chiefly based in
Europe, the “TEC community” was inexorably linked to Tenri City and was, in fact, a bi-local
social construction. Its existence was tied with both the imagined and experientially lived
connections that many of its members had to both TEC and to Tenri City and was promoted by
collectively shared moments that occurred in both locations.

In my discussion of how this “community” was formed, and why it constituted a community, I
emphasize the way in which membership in the “TEC community,” and by extension, the broader
Tenrikyo socio-religious world of which it was a part, occurred through conceptual and enacted
means as well as through bodily experiences. My thesis is, in sum, an exploration of how
different facets of this social world came together to form a greater interconnected social whole.
**KEY WORDS:** community, transnationalism, Tenrikyo, Japanese new religion, embodiment
# Table of Contents

<table><tr><td>Title Page</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Acknowledgements</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Abstract</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>Table of Contents</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td>List of Figures</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>List of Images</td><td>18</td></tr></table>

## INTRODUCTION..................................................................................20

<table><tr><td>Defining a multi-layered research population</td><td>22</td></tr><tr><td>Methodology</td><td>26</td></tr><tr><td>Thesis overview by chapter</td><td>33</td></tr></table>

## SECTION I: Introduction to research context........................................47

### Chapter one: The beginnings of Tenrikyo: a “Japanese new religion”..................................47

#### a. Founding of the path..................................................................................48

The foundress as the “Divine Model”: adherence to and departure from the established order....50
Revealing sacrality through spatial, textual, conceptual, and enacted means....................55

#### b. Becoming a “religion”..................................................................................58

The establishment of the category of “religion” in Japan................................................58
Tenrikyo’s inclusion in the category of “religion”.................................................................67

#### c. The forming of a religion after the life of its foundress........................................69

Oyasama’s withdrawal from physical life to hasten the path................................................69
Developing a religious tradition amidst the development of Japanese modernity and thereafter..75

### Chapter two: The faith, its expansion into Europe, and the complicated question of membership size and who is a member................................................................................80

#### a. Summary of the Tenrikyo religion........................................................................80

Tenrikyo teachings on the nature of human existence and of God........................................80
Conceptualizing the physical body and the heart/mind in Tenrikyo........................................84
Tenrikyo as an enacted faith.................................................................................................90
<table><tr><td><b><i>b. Early history of Tenrikyo in Europe and of TEC</i></b></td><td><b>91</b></td></tr><tr><td>Tenrikyo's initial efforts to spread the faith to Europe</td><td>91</td></tr><tr><td>How Tenrikyo's presence in Europe came to be based in a Parisian suburb</td><td>94</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td><b><i>c. The question of Tenrikyo's following by numbers and how "membership" can be defined</i></b></td><td><b>100</b></td></tr><tr><td>Basic numbers on Tenrikyo's global presence</td><td>100</td></tr><tr><td>Numerous ways of determining who is a follower</td><td>102</td></tr><tr><td>The presence of Tenrikyo followers in Europe</td><td>107</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td><b><i>SECTION II: The local side of the multi-layered TEC community</i></b></td><td><b>109</b></td></tr><tr><td>Section introduction</td><td>109</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td><b><i>Chapter three: Association Culturelle Franco-Japonaise de TENRI: A "laique" cultural center language school in central Paris that served as the door through which I came to TEC</i></b></td><td><b>110</b></td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td><b><i>a. ACFJT as a potential point of entry into the religion</i></b></td><td><b>110</b></td></tr><tr><td>How I came to know Tenrikyo and TEC via ACFJT: using my own experience as a case study</td><td>110</td></tr><tr><td>Fostering relationships via a "laique" cultural center to encourage religious exposure</td><td>114</td></tr><tr><td>ACFJT's use of "cultural activities" as a missionary conduit reflective of an internationally present strategy of spreading the faith</td><td>116</td></tr><tr><td>The purposeful absence of the Tenrikyo religion at the laique center of ACFJT</td><td>119</td></tr><tr><td>Initial exposure to the Tenrikyo faith through a personal relationship begun at ACFJT</td><td>129</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td><b><i>b. Encouraging presence to promote exposure</i></b></td><td><b>133</b></td></tr><tr><td>Welcoming people to TEC for non-religious events: a strategically indirect approach to religious propagation</td><td>133</td></tr><tr><td>"Sprinkling the fragrance" of the faith: the purposeful dispersal of a "Tenrikyo scent"</td><td>136</td></tr><tr><td>Spreading joy and community, spreading the faith via the "energy of light": multifaceted motivations for encouraging the presence of non-Tenrikyo people at TEC</td><td>140</td></tr><tr><td>Working to increase awareness of Tenrikyo and its teachings in the broader population: "sowing seeds" that may grow into something more</td><td>144</td></tr><tr><td>The orchestration of "traditional" cultural activities at TEC and in Tenrikyo: encouraging experiential involvement in modernity and while abroad</td><td>147</td></tr></table>
<table><tr><td>c. Becoming part of the “TEC community” through purposeful inclusion</td><td>151</td></tr><tr><td>Constructing belonging through presence: local non-Tenrikyo, non-Japanese members of the multilayered TEC community</td><td>151</td></tr><tr><td>ACFJT and TEC as bridges to locally living non-Tenrikyo Japanese people</td><td>154</td></tr><tr><td>An interview that led to an invitation to a TEC Monthly Service and an unexpected opportunity</td><td>158</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Chapter four: Residential life at TEC: The re-creation of a Tenrikyo residential model in a French location</td><td>166</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>a. The ebb and flow of TEC residents: an ongoing production of a Tenrikyo social model</td><td>166</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>The continuous sociality and ever-changing composition of people in the residential sphere of TEC</td><td>166</td></tr><tr><td>Looking at a social world through the presence and spatial organization of its participants</td><td>168</td></tr><tr><td>Fluidity and consistency as coexisting features of TEC</td><td>173</td></tr><tr><td>Young adult missionaries who end up staying in France: a transferal from the residential sphere of TEC to the long-term community</td><td>176</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>b. The “residential TEC family”: inhabiting familiar roles in a Parisian context</td><td>180</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>The structurally hierarchical model of the residential “family” of TEC</td><td>180</td></tr><tr><td>The head couple of TEC: an example of husband and wife working together through a “two-in-one” relationship</td><td>184</td></tr><tr><td>The head couple of TEC as “TEC parents”: the parent-child relational model’s centrality to the spiritual, organizational, and social sides of the religion</td><td>186</td></tr><tr><td>The ever-changing composition of the “residential TEC family,” the changing orchestration of center life</td><td>190</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>c. The maintenance of a Tenrikyo structure of daily life</td><td>192</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td>Bridging residential life at TEC and other Tenrikyo sites</td><td>192</td></tr><tr><td>Beginning the day in unison through morning hinokishin and the Morning Service: communal engagements based in the body and linked to the spirit</td><td>193</td></tr><tr><td>Productive days that start at TEC: the proactive continuation of the arduous work ethic of Japanese and Tenrikyo cultures through its daily structured embodiment</td><td>196</td></tr><tr><td>Pragmatic flexibility and consistent dedication to the Morning and Evening Service</td><td>197</td></tr><tr><td>Remaining partially in Japan while abroad through language</td><td>200</td></tr><tr><td>The displayed social world of residential TEC life: the culturally prescribed separation between what is shown and not shown</td><td>201</td></tr></table>
## Chapter five: Monthly Services at TEC: uniting with the faith and a local segment of the “TEC community” through a regularly occurring reenactment of the sacred..................206

### a. Returning to a familiar socio-religious context through ritual gatherings..................206

Repeatedly coming together for the Monthly Service..................................................206

Entering a cognitive realm linked with the Service through sensorial cues..................210

Enacting unity through sound and bodily movement..................................................221

### b. The social world of TEC and the social model of Tenrikyo as manifested through the TEC Monthly Service..................................................................................226

Sartorial clues of one's relationship to the religion and one's social position at TEC............226

The distribution of translated hymn books: the connection between language and social position in the “TEC community”..................................................................................233

Embodying Tenrikyo through the vocalization of the Songs for the Service..................239

Enacting hierarchy through ritual roles: the performance of the Seated Service by “important” people..................................................................................................................243

Performing unity through the Service Songs, executing a harmonious social model............247

### c. Becoming part of a religious world and the religious world becoming part of the individual..................................................................................................................249

The holistic approach of integration into the TEC community and the Tenrikyo faith through the children's group..................................................................................................................249

End-of-Service sermons that plant seeds of thought into the group..................................252

The offerings as a connecting factor to the faith, the center, and to others in attendance........254

Breaking bread and building connection: constructing community through behind the scenes moments of laying its foundation via meal preparations..................................................261

Varying levels of “being a member” or not amongst those in attendance: the TEC Monthly Service as a key unifying event..................................................................................265
## Chapter seven: The annual Tenrikyo European Seminar: cultivating followers through a structured training, constructing a virtual social world................................................329

### a. Integrating and reinforcing belonging in the social world of TEC and the broader realm of Tenrikyo................................................................................................................329

The European Seminar as my introduction to the TEC community and to the broader Tenrikyo social modality................................................................................................................329

Being at home at TEC, becoming increasingly embedded in the TEC community................................................331

Propagating a transnationally shared “Tenrikyo culture” in a localized context................................................338

Interpretational flexibility in combination with fixed structure: the role of the Service in transmitting the faith................................................................................................................346

Constructing inclusion in a community through interpersonal and visual means................................................349

### b. Establishing a connection with each other and the religious world of Tenrikyo through the body................................................................................................................352

Morning and evening hinokishin: repeated bodily engagement in communally orchestrated chores................................................................................................................352

Uniting with others and with the faith through structured moments of sacrality that took place in the sanctuary through ritualized tasks................................................................................................................360

Feeding bodies, feeding community: the important role of women's efforts in the kitchen................................................366

### c. Transmitting the religion through a transnationally shared pedagogy................................................373

Text-based classes: Structured schooling of a transnationally-shared Tenrikyo knowledge base................................................................................................................373

Learning the sacred Service, practicing a Tenrikyo mode of interaction................................................381

Conveying important components of Tenrikyo through repetition, embedding people in a religious realm................................................................................................................386

## Chapter Eight: The European Seminar as a social microcosm reflective of the broader social world of TEC................................................................................................................390

### a. Seminar participants as representative of different aspects of the wider TEC and Tenrikyo spheres................................................................................................................390

Being part of the seminar, being part of a social world................................................................................................................390

Seminar cohort of the English-speaking class: a case study of multiple facets of the multifarious “TEC community”................................................................................................................391

Stephanie: an example of differing perspectives on a participant's present and potential religious identity................................................................................................................392

Kenta: an example of the fluidity of followers coming from and leaving to Japan................................................397

Yuta: An example of being and becoming part of a multilayered social world................................................402
<table><tr><td><b>b. The diverse collection of participants coming from inside France</b></td><td>407</td></tr><tr><td>French-language cohort participants: A linguistically based separation largely reflective of an in-country/ out-of-country residential distinction</td><td>407</td></tr><tr><td>Ji-young: A connector to another diasporic Tenrikyo sphere</td><td>409</td></tr><tr><td>André: An outspoken French follower's appreciation of and opposition to various aspects of the Tenrikyo religious scene</td><td>414</td></tr><tr><td>Nathalie: making the choice to be rooted to the "Western church" of Bordeaux Kyokai</td><td>419</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td><b>c. Representing the religion and its connected social world through seminar instructors</b></td><td>424</td></tr><tr><td>Visiting seminar instructors from outside of Europe: links between TEC and the greater transnational context of Tenrikyo</td><td>424</td></tr><tr><td>European-based seminar instructors: core members of the TEC community who serve as connectors to the European and broader spheres of the religion</td><td>428</td></tr></table>

## SECTION IV: “Becoming Tenrikyo” in Tenri City: the centrally important component of the TEC community located on the other side of the world...432

<table><tr><td>Section Introduction</td><td>432</td></tr></table>

## Chapter nine: “Coming home” to Tenri City: Lived and imaginary connections to a pilgrimage site...433

<table><tr><td><b>a. The sustained and prominent connection to the Jiba</b></td><td>433</td></tr><tr><td>The bi-local nature of the TEC community</td><td>433</td></tr><tr><td>Being connected to the spiritual through sacred materiality: the primary three Tenrikyo sanctuaries</td><td>439</td></tr><tr><td>“Coming home” to the Jiba: constructed familiarity with a pilgrimage town</td><td>445</td></tr></table>

<table><tr><td><b>b. Uniting around the Jiba for the Monthly Service, creating a Tenrikyo world</b></td><td>447</td></tr><tr><td>A mystical point of focus that reverberates out from the Jiba to TEC through experiential and imaginative mean</td><td>447</td></tr><tr><td>Constructing a collective experiential and conceptual reference by means of the Monthly Service</td><td>451</td></tr></table>
c. Constructing belonging through presence and familiarity................................................454

Reconnecting with an emotionally evocative tale of motherly love through ritual, place, and recounted events................................................................................................................454

Staying in one's followers' dormitory, fostering connectedness with one's lineage and a Tenrikyo mode of communal life................................................................................................................461

Spending time at "parent sites" of one's lineage as a complementary component of "returning" to Tenri City................................................................................................................469

## Chapter ten: Spending time in Tenri City for education and events, cultivating experiential familiarity and togetherness................................................................................................................478

a. Religious and academic trainings that contribute to the personal construction of followers and their relation to the pilgrimage town and to the religion................................................478

The ongoing return to Jiba for organized reasons................................................................................................................478

Acquiring the distinction of "Yoboku," "becoming a member" in Tenri City................................................479

Religious trainings in Tenri City: constructing understandings Religious trainings in Tenri City: constructing understandings of and personal relationships to the faith and the pilgrimage town in which it is based................................................................................................................487

Schooling in Tenri City: an experiential connector between TEC and the pilgrimage town via of the TEC community................................................................................................................494

b. Connecting with the greater Tenrikyo sphere via special events................................................496

The 130th anniversary of Oyasama's withdrawal from physical life: celebrating in Tenri City and via distance at TEC, two layers of engagement by the TEC community................................................496

The International Young Men's Association Hinokishin Corps: creating a transnational male space of social connection and religious engagement................................................................................................................499

Tenri Forum: An international gathering of English-speaking followers, reuniting with members of a linguistically based sphere of Tenrikyo................................................................................................................502

c. The festival of the "Children's Pilgrimage to Jiba": reuniting with a familiar context of joy and with members of the TEC community................................................................................................................505

Fostering connectedness with fellow members of the TEC community, Tenri City, and the faith through an annual children's festival................................................................................................................505

The presence at TEC of the Children's Pilgrimage: an example of the outstretch of events in Tenri City to TEC................................................................................................................508

Reuniting with past and present members of the TEC community at the Children's Pilgrimage to Jiba: the continuation of a shared social world................................................................................................................510
CONCLUSION: Transportations, adaptations, and social linkages: multiple layers of group construction and solidification................................................517

How is a community constructed between interwoven social spheres................................................518

TEC as a bridge to a broader “Tenrikyo culture” and a site of localized community construction................................................................................................................520

The TEC Monthly Service as a connector to the wider realm of Tenrikyo through sensorial, material, and intentional factors................................................................................................................522

Factors of localization displayed in the TEC sanctuary that rendered it semi-place specific................526

The multilingual feature of TEC as reflective of its unique social composition................................................530

Binding vocabulary and action amidst diversity: the example of multiple ways of talking about, conceptualizing, and engaging in hinokishin................................................................................................................532

Résumé en français................................................................................................................536

Bibliography................................................................................................................615

English and French references................................................................................................................615

Japanese references................................................................................................................634
## List of Figures

<table><tr><td>Figure 1: Spatial layout of TEC grounds</td><td>167</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 2: Tenrikyo dual-layered system of organization</td><td>282</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 3: Connections and movement of followers between mission stations and general TEC population</td><td>284</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 4: Connections between Bordeaux Kyokai and other sites</td><td>297</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 5: Multi-directional connections of Sugimoto mission station</td><td>300</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 6: Organizational and affiliational connections between Ji-young and sites with which she was connected</td><td>410</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 7: Multidirectional official and unofficial connections between Mary and sites/spheres with which she was connected</td><td>423</td></tr><tr><td>Figure 8: Flow of monetary offerings between sites</td><td>461</td></tr></table>

## List of Images

<table><tr><td>Image 1: The Ten Providences of God the Parent in the Truth of Origin</td><td>88</td></tr><tr><td>Image 2: Street view of current TEC building</td><td>97</td></tr><tr><td>Image 3: Annual December mochi pounding event at TEC, lower level multi-purpose room at TEC</td><td>147</td></tr><tr><td>Image 4: Performance of the Monthly Service at TEC</td><td>207</td></tr><tr><td>Image 5: Lesson on Tenrikyo ritual for core members of TEC wearing Tenrikyo happi coats in preparation of Tenrikyo European Seminar orchestration</td><td>228</td></tr><tr><td>Image 6: TEC Monthly Service men's instrumental performers</td><td>238</td></tr><tr><td>Image 7: TEC Monthly Service women's instrumental performers</td><td>239</td></tr><tr><td>Image 8: Presence of lineage-based Tenrikyo sites in Europe</td><td>283</td></tr><tr><td>Image 9: Tenrikyo Main Sanctuary</td><td>437</td></tr><tr><td>Image 10: Foundress' Sanctuary</td><td>440</td></tr><tr><td>Image 11: Four wings of the Main Sanctuary</td><td>445</td></tr><tr><td>Image 12: The European group coming out from the backstage area in the publicly viewable area of the parade</td><td>513</td></tr><tr><td>Image 13: The European group performing in the festival parade</td><td>514</td></tr></table>
# Introduction

My research was centered at, but not exclusive to, the principal European site of the Japanese new religion of Tenrikyo<fnref n="3" />, Tenrikyo Europe Centre (TEC), located in the Parisian suburb of Antony. From this research, my thesis is focused on an eclectic conglomeration of people connected to TEC, and to each other, in various ways who I collectively refer to as the “TEC community.” This term imposed itself from my observations and perspective after several years of fieldwork to succinctly describe the interconnected social actors included in my research population and the social world that they together formed which was primarily based at TEC, but also included more than this precise context. My discussion of this notion as the focal topic of my study is meant to highlight the multi-sphered social complexities based at and connected to TEC that came together to form what presented itself as a larger interconnected social whole. In this text, I will explore how this diverse and dispersed collection of people constituted an unbound community through both conceptual and experiential linkages.

Although TEC itself was based in a Parisian suburb, the “TEC community” spanned beyond the Paris region, as it similarly did of precise moments in time or any overarching, singular description, including those of nationality, country of residence, or even religious identity. I demonstrate in this text how this multifarious collection of people did, in fact, constitute a “community” and furthermore, that the “TEC community” is an accurate description of the group on which I conducted my research, despite its lack of singularity.

In my discussion of how this “community” was formed, and why it constituted a community, I will accord emphasis to how becoming and being part of the “TEC community,” and extendedly, the broader Tenrikyo socio-religious world of which it was a part, occurred both via conceptual and enacted means and also through bodily experiences. As I will expand upon and explore in numerous parts of this document, Tenrikyo’s main religious ritual of the “Service” is composed of a scripted series of songs with accompanying dances which is a primary conveyer of Tenrikyo

<footnote n="3">³ Tenrikyo is sometimes written as “Tenrikyō” to convey its long “o” sound, as it is pronounced in Japanese. In my text, I choose to omit the macron (straight bar mark) because in English, it is often written without this marker of vowel elongation, thereby rendering it a “correct” version in this language.</footnote>
theology through its performance by these ritual actors. In this, religious engagement is largely positioned as a sensorially rich bodily experience. Beyond this ritual, the human body is positioned as both a key source of spiritual insight and a central reason that humans are taught to have divinely directed gratitude, thereby encouraging focal emphasis to be accorded to the body and physical experiences. I will expand upon both of these interconnected concepts later, but at this point, I would simply like to explain that I position mutually-shared, embodied, sensorial experiences as a key means through which linkages are constructed both between individuals themselves and also between these individuals and the broader group of which they are, and feel themselves to be, a part.

I will show that the interactions that promoted a sense of “community” through sharing space were often focused on working together toward the same aim. This includes both a larger goal such as orchestrating a multi-day event or, for a “core” faction of this group<fnref n="4" />, promoting Tenrikyo’s expansion in Europe, or much smaller goals, such as washing dishes in the kitchen of TEC via a collaborative model of symbiotic cooperation that is similarly present in the religion’s main ritual of the “Service” and relatedly, also an important component of its cosmology and idealized social model. Working together toward a greater collective goal is a key Tenrikyo tenet, as manifested and embodied through its Service ritual<fnref n="5" />. Such collaborative efforts fostered a sense of belonging in the social microsphere of which the social actors were immediately a part and also functioned as a binding element of the broader group through their experiential commonality, and additionally, through the overlap between these precise spheres and the presence of the involved social actors in numerous of them, thereby functioning as social linkages.

By spending time at TEC and taking part in its social world, participants were increasingly inculcated with the norms associated with being at this center and spending time with a segment of its “community.” For Tenrikyo followers familiar with, and often strongly grounded in, the Tenrikyo religion in other contexts who came to TEC, many of these norms, though not all, were

<footnote n="4">⁴ I will explain what I mean by “core” slightly later.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ The “Service” ritual refers to both the Monthly Service and a shorter version performed, ideally, twice daily that I will expand upon later.</footnote>
part of the broader realm of Tenrikyo with which they were already familiar, thereby providing
an integrational bridge of familiarity into the precise context of TEC and its connected
“community” which also involved its own particularities that they would increasingly learn,
internalize, enact, and then transfer to others. This increasing absorption of norms encouraged
people to feel and function as part of its greater whole. As will be shown, both fictional and real
kinship linkages included in the social world of TEC which contributed to both the
interconnectedness of its members and the familial feel of the broader group. I will extensively
discuss these features later in my text. First, I will explain the multi-layered collection of social
actors who comprised my research population.

Defining a multi-layered research population

The interconnected and multi-layered social world of TEC that I refer to collectively as the “TEC
community” and position as my research population is one that is difficult to succinctly
summarize or relegate to a single context. Yet, through multiple years of involvement in the
multifarious social world connected to TEC, it became evident that the numerous interconnected
“spheres” of, and connected to, this center together formed a greater whole. As previously
explained, the multi-layered social collectivity that I will demonstrate to have constituted a
“community” included individuals connected to TEC through numerous channels. They were
physically based in and connected to a multitude of locations and included in this group were
people of various nationalities. Furthermore, between them, there were variegated understandings
of and relationships to the Tenrikyo religion itself. Some members of the “TEC community” did
not view themselves as members of the religion at all but were nonetheless part of its social
world. Despite such spatial, personal, and social diversities, they were an interconnected social
group that together constituted an unbound community that involved a complex, ever-developing
symphony of social flows and webs of connection. My thesis is, in sum, an exploration of how
different facets of this social world came together to form a greater interconnected social entity.

One factor that positioned TEC as a centralizing point of “community” between these diverse
social actors connected in various ways to this center and its associated social world was that
there was no set criteria to be part of it, thus creating a lack of clear distinction between “insiders”
and “outsiders.” Gatherings at TEC often brought together a multitude of diverse social actors
with varying relationships to the center, life situations, and perspectives on and relationships to the Tenrikyo religion. In such settings, if one directs one's focus to the micro-worlds of the people present, there was a multiplicity of individual and small group experiences included. Yet, if one took a more expansive perspective, that they collectively comprised a more expansive social entity was manifest.

If so many micro-contexts were present in such scenes, and moreover in the broader collection of people connected in various ways to TEC, what was it that rendered them to collectively constitute a “community”? One important factor that facilitated this was that the boundaries between the numerous channels of connection to the center and its connected social world were not solid, but rather were differentiated through perforated compartmentalizing markers through which crossovers and interconnections were common. Some people were part of the “TEC community” for a while, then faded largely, though often not entirely, away from this social world. Others were more constantly part of this “community” over prolonged periods of time. This fluidity in who was included in the social world of, and connected to, TEC and how they were connected was a key feature that was consistent over time in concert with the variability in the precise composition of people actively included in the ongoing social world of TEC at any given time.

While most Tenrikyo followers who came to TEC were Japanese, there was also a variety of followers of other nationalities who also came to the center. Some followers were more ardent believers and practitioners of the religion than others. Correspondingly, a variety of understandings and ways of practicing the religion were included in the collection of religious actors who came together at TEC. For some people included in my research population, it was not clear if they should be counted as members of the religion or not. While, as noted previously, others who came to TEC and were part of its social world, and thus its “community,” did not even view themselves as members of the religion at all.

A somewhat remarkable feature of TEC, which is no doubt partially due to its location next to a major cosmopolitan city, was the number of people born and raised outside of France who came there. At any major TEC event, such as its “Monthly Service” ritual, which I will further explain later in this introductory section and expand upon in subsequent parts of my text, beyond the
perhaps more expected presence of Japanese people, due to Tenrikyo being a “Japanese religion”
or as it is most commonly categorized in Japan, a “Japanese new religion,” it was common for
people of about ten different nationalities<fnref n="6" /> to be in attendance.

The most common nationality-based demarcation in this “community” was between Japanese and non-Japanese people<fnref n="7" /> which involved a Japanese social core along with the inclusion of people of numerous other national backgrounds. Because Tenrikyo is a “religion”<fnref n="8" /> that came about in Japan, where it continues to be organizationally and spiritually based and where the vast majority of its present-day followers reside, and because almost all of the key Tenrikyo religious actors in Europe were Japanese, being Japanese was often associated with being part of or having easier access to the inner sphere of TEC. This was only a general theme, though, as some Japanese people were more peripherally involved in the social world of TEC and conversely, some non-Japanese people were highly involved in the religion and regularly present at TEC.

Occasionally in my thesis, I also employ the complex terms of “Western” and “Westerner” to reference both people and cultural systems. My use of these somewhat ambiguous and sometimes contentious terms is reflective of the collection of people included in my research population meant to primarily differentiate people from European, North, and South American<fnref n="9" /> cultural backgrounds from people of Japanese, Congolese, and Korean cultural backgrounds. My categorization of people and cultures of Europe, North, and South America as “Western” is reflective of the definition of this term which positions the Western world as Europe and the areas whose populations have had a large European ethnic presence since the 15th century Age of Discovery’s imperialism and the notion of a Modern West. My use of this term is not meant to be

<footnote n="6">6 My use of “nationality” in this instance is to reference the country where people were born and raised, regardless of their current nationality(ies).</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ The categorical differentiation between Japanese people and non-Japanese people is a commonly present juxtaposition made by Japanese people commonly referenced through the word “gaijin” (外人, the two kanji characters of which literally mean “outside” and “person”) to talk about the broad category of non-Japanese people, or through its more polite variation “gaikokujin” (外国人 the three kanji characters of which literally mean “outside,” “country” “person.”)</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ A subsequent subsection of this introductory section is dedicated to the category of “religion” in Japan and why Tenrikyo belongs to this category.</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ In this statement, I am referring to the dominant modern-day cultures of these regions.</footnote>
in an economic sense, which may exclude numerous Central and South American countries, and
extendedly is also not reflective of sociopolitical analyses, such as that of Huntington (1996),
which positions Latin America as intimately connected to the West, but divided as to its
belonging in it. I also wish to elude certain polarizing connotations associated with the term, such
as that of Said (1978).

Because the primary nationality-based distinction in my research context was between Japanese
and non-Japanese people and my text is reflective of this, my references to “Westerners” and
“Western” contexts, by default, exclude Japanese people and contexts, thereby rendering the
complicated question of if Japan is or is not included in the “West” irrelevant for my use of this
term. Although this term is contentious and carries with it numerous definitions, in the context of
my research, it was a meaningful category, partly as an emic one that I observed to be
conceptualized and expressed by members of my research population.

Another referential term that I use to demarcate a segment of my research population is the word
"core." My use of this word is reflective of the largely two-tiered character of the "TEC
community," composed of a "core" group of people who served as its social foundation and a
secondary layer of people of multiple categories and ways of being connected to and involved in
this social world. Most, though not all, "core" members of this group were Japanese religious
actors born and raised in the Tenrikyo faith. Furthermore, the majority of them were actively
charged with promoting this religion in Europe as "missionaries," either through shorter periods,
most often several years, while dispatched from Japan for this purpose, during which time they
most commonly taught Japanese at the Association Culturelle Franco-Japonaise de TENRI
(ACFJT), or as longer term residents of Europe who hosted Tenrikyo sites of worship in their
homes. The secondary, more peripheral level of people included in what I collectively refer to as
the "TEC community" is more difficult to briefly summarize because it included people of
multiple categories who were involved in this social world through numerous capacities. I will
expand somewhat on the collection of people who together comprised my research population in
the overview of my thesis that I offer slightly later in my introduction and then to a much greater
extent throughout my thesis.
Methodology

During my fieldwork and afterward, I was often asked overarching questions about my thesis research. The more time I spent “in the field,” the more I understood the response to this question, that was seemingly simple but was, in fact, a rather complicated and unclear matter, in a tangible and up-close manner. Despite the intimate micro-understanding obtained through firsthand observations and involvement that I held and developed throughout the majority of the two years of my “focused fieldwork” on the expansive social world of TEC, it remained difficult to succinctly put into words who precisely was included in the multilayered social world on which I had entered and subsequently chosen to conduct my research, and on what precise topic my thesis would focus.

Most often, when such questions were posed to me, I simply stated vaguely that I was studying something involving the Japanese new religion of Tenrikyo in Paris, in France, and extendedly, in Europe. I did not think such a response adequately described what I was observing and participating in but lacked a better way to briefly describe the multi-sited and multilayered contexts of my fieldwork. It was only after I decided to close this two-year period of focused fieldwork and put distance between myself and my research context that I had become very much involved in, located in the same geographic region that I was otherwise living and academically based, that, through taking a step back, the topic on which my thesis would focus, and relatedly *who* in fact composed my research population and why, became clear.

This lack of definedness regarding my research topic and research population during this lengthy period of fieldwork was principally because I had not planned to focus my study on TEC and its social world. Rather, my investigation shifted to being focused on this group in a largely undefined way through several unplanned developments after having initially started my doctoral studies with a different intended topic of inquiry, which then evolved into another, before becoming focused on its present research population in some yet to be determined way. Both of these earlier research topics involved Japanese migrants<fnref n="10" /> in Paris but neither gave much thought

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ Throughout my thesis, I use the term “migrant.” My use of this word is meant to refer to people from one country who “migrate” to live in another country, regardless of country of origin or migratory motivation. While “migrant” is commonly used to refer to people from developing countries who relocate to another country for economic or politically motivated reasons, this is not always the case. As explained by Benson and O’Reilly (2016) in</footnote>
to the realm of religion. Finally, through a combination of factors and events detailed in chapter three that, in sum, came about through my studying the Japanese language at a "non-religious" (laique) Japanese cultural center and language school, Association Culturelle Franco-Japonaise de TENRI (ACFJT), in central Paris associated with TEC and Tenrikyo in preparation for my intended fieldwork did I discover and become involved in my present research context.

I was a student at ACFJT for a little under two years before my research came to be focused on TEC and Tenrikyo. This unplanned shift came about after my impromptu acceptance of an invitation to attend an intensive three-week religious seminar held at TEC, about which chapters seven and eight are dedicated, without knowing much about what I was entering into. This unplanned concentrated entry into what became my research context proved to be a rigorous introduction to the socio-religious world of TEC and of the Tenrikyo religion that would be fruitful in directing my research to its present topic.

Shortly after participating in this religious seminar, in combination with several exchanges with members of this group afterward, I decided to request permission from “them” (meaning the people of TEC-which is an ambiguously defined group) to conduct my doctoral research on the social world into which I had entered. I did not yet fully understand how TEC and Tenrikyo functioned but viewed the senior officials of TEC as the people to whom I should direct this request. To do so, I sent an email to my key contact of the group, my Japanese teacher, Mr. Sugimoto, who had invited me to participate in this training, to express my interest in conducting research on “Tenrikyo in France, chiefly on TEC,” with a request to meet with him and several other senior staff members of the religious center, including its head, to discuss the possibility.

<footnote>their article on "lifestyle migrants," which also included discussion of various other types of "migrants" and "migrations," including "retirement migrants," there is often overlap between various categories employed in migration studies in which assigning groups of people to exclusively one category of migrant or migration is frequently problematic. In my use of this term, I wish to underline the movement-based ("migratory") character of the social actors I reference with this term who are living in a country other than the one in which they were born and raised rather than as an implied reference to their reason(s) for displacement.</footnote>
Several days after sending this email, I received a response from my teacher that said he could
“accept my proposal with pleasure.”<fnref n="11" />

Subsequently, it was at Mr. Sugimoto’s familial home that I would attend the Monthly Services of his lineage-based “mission station.” Connectedly, because it was Mr. Sugimoto who first invited me to religious events at TEC and thus he who had “introduced me to the path,” it would be Mr. Sugimoto who was positioned as my “spiritual parent” (*ri no oya 理の親*) in the religion. When I learned of this, I felt taken aback because I had never chosen to be part of this religion. To the contrary, I had expressed my involvement being motivated by my conducting anthropological research or my thesis rather than a personal search for religion. This ambiguity of being positioned first and foremost as a person coming to learn about and becoming involved in the Tenrikyo faith by a multitude of followers with whom I was associated in my fieldwork and my own perspective which positioned myself as first and foremost a researcher interested in this socio-religious world, and not a follower or potential follower of the religion, was a prominent component of my fieldwork.

This complication was present throughout the slightly less than two years that I refer to as the
period of my “focused fieldwork,” or alternatively, “concentrated fieldwork.” This period was
from July 2015 when I participated in the three-week seminar at TEC until July 2017, at which
time I chose to largely exit from the socio-religious world that I had become a regularly present
and highly involved “member”<fnref n="12" /> in order to create distance which I felt was needed to better
think about and analyze this social world without simultaneously being highly involved in it. I
continued thereafter to be connected with some members of this group and to a lesser degree, the
socio-religious world on which my research was focused and also continued to live in the Paris
area, thereby lessening the absoluteness of a divide between being “in the field” and “at home.”<fnref n="13" />

<footnote n="11">¹¹ I never did meet formally with the other staff members to discuss the possibility of my conducting research on this group, but they were aware of my doing so, as were most other people I spent time with throughout the course of my fieldwork.</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹² Although I was not, at least in my own perception, a member of Tenrikyo, I had become part of the “TEC community.”</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³ As I will explain later in this text, although I was living in Paris during this general period, I am not a native Parisian, but rather, was born and raised in Alaska.</footnote>
During my concentrated period of fieldwork throughout which I continued to spend time at TEC and got to know a variety of people connected to the center in various ways as the primary, though not sole, site of my fieldwork, it became apparent that in focusing on TEC, I was not solely looking at the presence of Tenrikyo in France. Rather, I was also looking at Tenrikyo in Europe more broadly as TEC serves as the gathering point between followers and Tenrikyo sites dispersed throughout multiple European countries. Furthermore, this site was intimately connected to people and structures outside of Europe, mainly in Japan but also elsewhere, primarily the United States and additionally, the inclusion of non-Tenrikyo people, such as those linked to TEC through its connected non-religious cultural center and language school of ACFJT. Thus, while my research was focused at TEC, it involved multiple connected sites and multiple layers of social actors and groups who were connected to TEC in various ways, and often, to each other. Coming and going was a prominent theme of this center's social world, as was the multiplicity of ways people were connected to this center and to the "TEC community."

To briefly describe my two-year period of concentrated fieldwork, I was based in the Paris region (as I had been previously and would continue to be afterward) and became a regular presence at almost all of the organized events and activities at and connected to TEC that I will reference and discuss throughout my thesis. My involvement entailed some form of engagement almost every week at least once, often more. I also continued to attend the twice-weekly Japanese classes at ACFJT taught by the man who had become my "spiritual parent," according to the Tenrikyo system of organization, during my first year of concentrated fieldwork. He would also host me in his familial home for the Monthly Service ritual every month.

My fieldwork also included almost a month and a half in Japan during the summer after I chose to focus my research on this socio-religious world. This took place primarily, though not exclusively, in the pilgrimage town of Tenri City, which I will describe to some extent slightly later and then in more detail in subsequent parts of this text. My observations also included a digitally based element. A main contributor for which was from my increasing connectedness to members of this socio-religious world via Facebook, both those living in Europe and to a lesser degree, others living in the US and Japan, generally with the other person initiating the "friend request." These connections offered insights into many of the social actors included in, and connected to, the unbound social world on which my research was focused and further showed
the interconnectedness between numerous disparate people I met throughout the span of my
research.

My involvement during this two-year period of concentrated fieldwork was, in general, one in which whenever an opportunity presented itself to participate in the eclectic world of and connected to TEC and Tenrikyo in a way I felt to be appropriate, I took it. My overzealous involvement was paired with my abstention from certain types of engagements which I viewed to be inappropriate for me to take part in, in relation to my own self-understanding of being a non-Tenrikyo researcher who was involved with the Tenrikyo faith out of “anthropological” interest rather than an adoption, or potential adoption, of Tenrikyo as my own religious tradition and source of spiritual faith which I was open about and maintained<fnref n="14" /> throughout my fieldwork and afterwards. As such, I often had one foot in and one foot out of this religious context, with navigation and negotiation of what I would and would not do included as an ongoing component of my fieldwork.

To offer the reader a concrete example of this ongoing negotiation and navigation, when I was in
the pilgrimage town of Tenri City, I attended seven of the nine “Besseki” lectures required to
become a “Yoboku” (an important Tenrikyo designation that I will explain slightly later, along
with an accompanying explanation of the required Besseki lectures). My attendance of seven of
these lectures was reflective of my anthropological interest in the experience of attending them,
as they are positioned as an important component of religious involvement and “initiation” in
combination with the encouragement from my “spiritual parents” (and others) to do so. Because I
did not view myself as a follower of the Tenrikyo faith, however, I chose to only attend seven of
the nine required lectures as I did not feel it appropriate to undergo the sacred rite of becoming a
Yoboku and thus abstained from acquiring the eligibility requirement of having first attended all
nine lectures. This choice was in contrast to the wishes of several followers with whom I was
connected, as Tenrikyo is an evangelic religion that seeks to attract new followers, but was
nonetheless accepted.

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ There was a certain level of occasional blurring of my perceptual boundary that sought to maintain my status as a non-Tenrikyo anthropologist rather than an adherent or practitioner of the faith, as is somewhat common to researchers highly involved in such contexts.</footnote>
This balancing between taking part in aspects of religious involvement that Tenrikyo followers included in my research population expressed a desire for me to engage in and my own level of comfort and perspective on what types of engagement I should and should not participate in, in relation to my personal understanding of my own, rather atypical, relationship to the faith was occasionally present throughout my fieldwork. In saying this, I should also explain that while I purposefully had one foot in and one foot out of the religion, I was highly involved in my research context in a genuine and personal way and my engagement with the religion itself was also conducted in this manner.

For example, as explained, I chose to not attend all nine Besseki lectures that would open up the possibility of becoming a Yoboku, which I was adamant in not doing because of my perspective that it would not be sincere and thus not something I should do. Similarly, I also declined a hopeful invitation for me to serve as a ritual performer in the TEC Monthly Service as I did not want to present myself as something I did not view myself to be (a Tenrikyo follower) or take part in this form of ritual engagement with the sacred. Nonetheless, this did not negate my having personal experiences with its rituality. On two separate occasions for instance, I performed the Morning and Evening Service “religiously,” as is prescribed in the faith and which actively practicing followers (ideally) do, on my own at home over approximately one-month periods. Although I did not generally discuss this personal ritual engagement with the religion with members of my research population, nor do I write directly about this experience in my thesis, my engaging in this form of religious practice was done with as much sincerity as was possible from my conceptual position and provided intimate insights regarding this important aspect of Tenrikyo.

I do not wish to insinuate that my own experiences in doing this were the same as every person included in my research population who also performed this twice daily ritual act, which is no doubt an impossibility because people understand and experience it differently. Rather, I mention this private experiential engagement to convey one of numerous ways by which I was heavily involved in my research context not as a complete “insider” (if such a thing even truly exists in a sizable and eclectic group) nor as an unaffected observer, but as a person from a particular personal background and a particular current life situation learning about and becoming increasingly part of this social world. Just as other people do, according to their own backgrounds
and current life situations in a real and sincere way that permeated my being and spanned beyond
the precise moments I was taking part in “fieldwork, in the field” to become a part of my overall
life and self.

My findings are principally derived from my lived participation in the eclectic socio-religious world that I would come to call the “TEC community,” including reference to a multitude of informal conversations that were illuminative, aided with the assistance of the numerous journals that contained my fieldnotes. My research also included semi-structured, digitally recorded interviews with fifteen people representative of numerous aspects, or “spheres,” of my research context. Unfortunately, although many of the insights gained through these interviews are included in my thesis, the actual digital recordings of these interviews were lost after I had already concluded my two-year period of fieldwork. Regarding this aspect of my research, some of my requests to interview members of the TEC community were met with reticence, in which although they did not directly<fnref n="15" /> say no, their preference to decline was expressed in a roundabout way, often through omission of a direct yes or no, paired with instead mentioning something related to our unfolding conversation but that directed it in a slightly different direction, thereby eschewing the request. I took this to imply that I should use caution in asking people to participate in structured interviews as it was proving to be an uncomfortable request for some people to whom I posed this question.

Interactions that were less directed than semi-structured interviews with a digital recorder and
most often, an open-ended questionnaire, proved to provide a wealth of information in
comparison to a number of these recorded interviews. This was due, in large part, to the increased
ease with which people spoke when “off the record,” particularly after we had gotten to know
each other<fnref n="16" />. Thus, after losing this limited number of recorded interviews, I did not anew
conduct recorded interviews with members of my research population in order to acquire direct

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ The people I am referencing who indirectly did not offer an affirmative response to my interview requests were Japanese and furthermore, did not occupy hierarchically high positions in the Tenrikyo religion or at TEC, which may have contributed to their apprehension to serve as vocalized sources of authority on TEC and the Tenrikyo faith, despite that my requests to interview them were not seeking this.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ I would like to reiterate that I tried to be purposefully forthcoming with people that I was conducting anthropological research for my thesis, thus, the potential of my including such informal discussions in my findings was an openly expressed possibility.</footnote>
quotes to include in my thesis. This was partially because I did not think it was necessary for my
discussion which was, by that point, well on its way to being developed in combination with
having deliberately transitioned from this socio-religious world, and also, as time went on, time
(and energy) constraints that suggested I should focus on using the wealth of information that I
had already obtained rather than return to "the field" for the sake of acquiring direct quotes. This
is only a brief overview of how I conducted my research. My "methodology" is also an
interwoven component of my text. I would like to note before moving on that all names of people
included in my study are pseudonyms<fnref n="17" />. This is my own choice, rather than reflective of a request
from the people I discuss. I also blur the faces of people in the photos included. This is also my
own choice, rather than at the request of the people shown.

Thesis overview by chapter

The organization of this thesis is one that, to a great extent, presented itself organically through
my involvement in the eclectic social world that occurred at and was connected to TEC. More
specifically, in addition to this introductory section and its counterpart of a brief conclusion at the
end of my text, my thesis is composed of four sections. The first section, composed of two
chapters, will lay the groundwork of my research context to situate the reader for the other three
sections that follow, developed primarily from my own fieldwork.

In this first section, the first chapter focuses principally on the early history of Tenrikyo during
the life of its foundress and the early developments of the faith. In this chapter, I will also discuss
the establishment of “religion” in Japan as a defined and overarching category into which
Tenrikyo came to be included during this same period. The second chapter will continue with
providing a contextualizing framework from which to put forth my own ethnographic discussion
by explaining basic elements of Tenrikyo theology and practice, the religion’s initial, albeit short
lived, efforts to spread the path to Europe via England at the beginning of the 20th century and the
beginnings of TEC over half a century later. In this second chapter, I will also address the
somewhat complicated question of how many Tenrikyo followers there are both globally and in
the more precise location of Europe that is coupled with an exploration of numerous ways

<footnote n="17">¹⁷ Excluding when citing authors included in this “research population”.</footnote>
"membership" in this religion can be determined. As this first section is soon to follow in this text, I will not accord it more of a detailed explanation at this present point.

The three latter sections are mainly reflective of the space-based divisions of where the “TEC community” was constructed, existed, and was linked. The second section, composed of three chapters, is focused on the local side of the “TEC community” that involved mainly people living in the Paris area. The third section is also composed of three chapters and expands its range of focus to the broader spatial domain of the European continent. The fourth section is composed of two chapters and shifts its focus to approximately halfway around the world to the pilgrimage town of Tenri City in Japan, where Tenrikyo is spiritually and organizationally based, which is also an important component of the group on which my thesis is focused.

Chapter three begins at my own introductory point to what would become my research context: the cultural center and language school of ACFJT. This third chapter is both an introduction to my research context and an account of my own experience of learning about and becoming involved in it. As I will explain in more detail shortly, a primary reason for the existence of ACFJT is to serve as a bridge to introduce the Tenrikyo faith to members of the Parisian populace<fnref n="18" />. This goal, it should be noted, is coupled with the fact that this religion is not discussed within its walls due to its categorization as a secular (laique) cultural center in a country with a strict division between contexts in which the presence of religion is or is not considered appropriate and/or permitted. In this third chapter, I will introduce multiple spheres of the “TEC community,” including a collection of locally living people who were socially involved with TEC and its social world despite not being Tenrikyo followers themselves and furthermore, many of them not involving themselves in the religious side of TEC.

The majority of these non-Tenrikyo locally living group members came to be connected to, and involved in, the “TEC community” through getting to know Tenrikyo “missionaries” working at ACFJT, along with accepting invitations to come to TEC for events and activities that did not have an overtly religious focus. I argue that despite not being “members” of the religion, that they

<footnote n="18">¹⁸ The second part of this introductory section discusses the Tenrikyo religion and the history of its development along with the early history of this religion’s initial presence in Europe and the later founding of TEC approximately a half-century later, along with a discussion on the question of how many “members” of the Tenrikyo religion there are, along with a contextualizing explanation of why, in fact, this is a complicated question.</footnote>
were nonetheless “members” of the “TEC community” (albeit to varying degrees) through their involvement, often over the span of multiple years, in combination with the type of interactions that were conducive to community construction and their inclusion therein.

Chapter four, then, slightly shifts its focus from ACFJT and the locally living non-Tenrikyo component of the “TEC community” to the residential sphere of TEC where young adult<fnref n="19" /> Japanese followers sent abroad by the religious organization of Tenrikyo as “missionaries,” most often to work at ACFJT as Japanese language teachers, along with the head of TEC, his<fnref n="20" /> family, and several others live. In contrast to the locally living non-Tenrikyo “members” of the “TEC community,” who I position in more of the peripheral level of this group, these TEC residents were core members of the “community.” More precisely, many of these residents were very much a part of TEC and its ongoing social world during their time of living at the center. Some of these residents then transitioned to being longer-term core members of the group through moving away from TEC but becoming residents of France over more prolonged periods, but most returned to Japan, after which they remained connected to TEC and members of its community, though to a lesser degree.

I demonstrate that this residential sphere of people living communally at TEC constituted a socially constructed family, which I refer to as the “residential TEC family,” that was made and remade over time through people solidly grounded in both Japanese culture and “Tenrikyo culture” (a term I will discuss later) coming to TEC and becoming woven into life there through experiential formation, then at some point thereafter, parting from this residential sphere. Despite the precise composition of this residential sphere changing over time through a semi-constant inflow and outflow of residents, its existence and many of its features remained largely constant over time. Amongst their numerous contributions to the broader group of the “TEC community” was their serving as a social base and hosts to those who came to TEC, particularly newcomers and people situated in the periphery of this group, who did not feel at home there themselves.

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ Generally in my thesis, I refer to people between eighteen and thirty years of age as “young adults” or the variants of “young women” and “young men.”</footnote>

<footnote n="20">²⁰ Until present, all heads of TEC have been male.</footnote>
These missionary residents were most often born into and raised at Tenrikyo churches, either through their father<sup>21</sup> serving as the church's head minister, or otherwise through their family living on church grounds to provide support, thereby habituating them to life at a Tenrikyo site. It was also common for these residents to have undergone academic and/or spiritual trainings in Tenri City where they stayed in communal housing, further rendering a communal "Tenrikyo" mode of residentiality a part of their habitus. In coming to TEC, they were bringing with them their experiences of living in these other Tenrikyo contexts which they then transferred to this European center. I argue that the material, social, and spiritual congruence between TEC and other Tenrikyo sites encouraged previously formed ways of being that were developed in other Tenrikyo contexts to be transferred to TEC and that this contributed to the continuation of a Japanese Tenrikyo culture at TEC.

Chapter five continues to focus on the local Paris level of the “TEC community,” but expands out from the more intimate sphere of residential life at TEC to that of the center’s main ritual of the Monthly Service. This ritual is divided into three components which each have a different composition of ritual actors, with each segment requiring fifteen people, thereby holding the potential for a multitude of people to actively take part in its performance. Despite this, it was generally “core members” of the “TEC community,” who were most often Japanese and born into and raised in the faith<sup>22</sup> who served as ritual performers, while others in attendance, many of whom were positioned in more of the peripheral layer of the “TEC community,” watched and listened to this ritual performance from the audience section of TEC’s sanctuary. This was one repetitive instance, amongst others, by which the two-tiered character of the “TEC community” was physically manifested. Whether one was a ritual actor or in the more passive role as exclusively an attendee in the audience section, through attending the Monthly Service, one was taking part in a sensorially immersive experience that is enacted in like manner at other Tenrikyo sites, regardless of location, thereby experientially linking the TEC Monthly Service with the broader sphere of Tenrikyo.

<footnote n="21"><sup>21</sup> It is possible, though significantly less common, for women to serve as head ministers. This was not the case, however, for any of the TEC residents I spoke with or heard about.</footnote>

<footnote n="22"><sup>22</sup> These categories were not mutually exclusive. Not all “core members” of the TEC community were Japanese and not all Japanese people of this group were core members.</footnote>
Another experiential similarity between the Monthly Service at TEC and at most other Tenrikyo sites was the ritual itself being followed by an amical commensality shared by those in attendance. At TEC, this was in the form of an elaborate meal that usually lasted longer than the ritual portion of this gathering that spanned between one and a half and two hours and was prepared by (generally) locally living core female members of the “TEC community” the day prior. In addition to the “spiritually” based connection between those in attendance that the ritual encouraged, the amical sharing of food and drinks that followed, which was a similarly notable component of other TEC events, was an important contributing factor to the construction of the “community” that was based at and linked to this center. In both the ritual itself and the shared meal that followed, beyond any ascribed theological meaning, it was via the physical bodies of those in attendance that this occurred, thus underlining the role of the physical bodies of those involved in the construction of a “community” through this event. This is a prominent theme that runs throughout my thesis.

Chapters six through eight comprise the third section of my thesis which expands its range of focus to the religion's presence in the broader European continent, which still mainly concerns France, along with several other nearby western European countries, and this broader region's contribution to the "TEC community." Chapter six discusses the presence of lineage-based sites of worship in Europe, of which there were twenty-three during my fieldwork. As I will discuss later, the Tenrikyo religion is constructed through a lineage-based model that is reflective of the Japanese household (ie) organizational system. Each person categorized as a "member" of Tenrikyo, which is itself a largely undefined category as I will explore in chapter two, is rooted to a particular lineage-based site, which I refer to throughout my thesis as their "home site<fnref n="23" />," and its connected "church lineage."

Similar to most other Tenrikyo lineage-based sites throughout the world, lineage-based sites in Europe are located in the home of the person designated as the site's head. Each lineage-based site<fnref n="24" /> is supervised by a "parent church," which is in turn supervised by another "parent church"

<footnote n="23">²³ The term “home site” is my own creation to explain this concept. It is not one I heard used by Tenrikyo followers.</footnote>

<footnote n="24">²⁴ Unless the church in question is a “grand church,” in which case it is directly supervised by Tenrikyo Church Headquarters.</footnote>
if there are more hierarchical links before reaching the religion’s spiritual and organizational
center: Tenrikyo Church Headquarters (Tenrikyo Kyokai Honbu 天理教教会本部). Almost all
lineage-based sites in Europe were founded (and headed) by Japanese people born and raised in
families strongly implicated in the religion, often at Tenrikyo churches in Japan either headed by
their parent (generally, their father) or otherwise in a family living on church grounds in order to
play a supportive role of assistance.

Most families who headed these European lineage-based sites were long-term “core members” of
the “TEC community.” Most who lived in the Paris area were regularly present at TEC. Families
who headed lineage-based sites outside of the Paris area were at TEC less regularly, but generally
came multiple times a year, most often for larger events aimed at bringing together followers
living throughout the European continent, reflective of one of the center’s main purposes. The
presence of these families at TEC over prolonged periods of time, along with their prominent
roles in promoting this religion in Europe, anchored them as core members of the group, in which
their coming to this center was much akin to their coming back to a familial context. Extendedly,
their presence at TEC for a variety of gatherings provided a sense of there being a long-term
community connected to this center into which newcomers were welcomed and more peripherally
positioned people were included<fnref n="25" />. According to the general Tenrikyo system, it was these
lineage-based sites that were charged with attracting newcomers to the path of Tenrikyo and thus
were an important component of this religion’s presence in Europe more broadly and were
therefore an important contributing component to the wider “TEC community,” beyond the
families, themselves, who operated them.

Most of these lineage-based sites were small. Several people who hosted them, in fact, told me
that although they had some people come to their homes to participate in their Monthly Services,

<footnote n="25">²⁵ Although the “TEC community” was multi-layered and included a close-knit “core,” newcomers and people less implicated in the group were purposefully welcomed, often with efforts for them to be included in the group. This was largely because of the religion’s emphasis on both human fraternity and the importance of harmonious collaboration and friendship in combination with its emphasis on missionary work to bring more people to the path of Tenrikyo and solidly anchor them in it. Despite these efforts, in practice, there was often an observable demarcation between “core” and more peripheral members of the group.</footnote>
which is the chief task of lineage-based sites<fnref n="26" />, that these people were not followers and the sites which they headed had no official members outside their immediate families<fnref n="27" />. Several of the lineage-based sites in Europe, though, had more sizable numbers of locally living people rooted to them. The most prominent of which was “Bordeaux Kyokai<fnref n="28" />.” Although Bordeaux Kyokai was not the main focus of my research, it was a notable component of Tenrikyo’s presence in Europe due to both its relatively large membership size in comparison to all other European lineage-based sites and to the fact that almost all (or all) of its members were French, as was its head minister. The latter component of a Tenrikyo site being headed by a “Western” person was quite rare and was a notable feature for which it was internationally known and demonstrates another feature of the eclectic composition of people and precise situations involved in the broader group on which my study is focused. Amongst other purposes, chapter six offers an insight into a layer of the “TEC community” that was both longer-term and disbursed over multiple European countries.

Chapters seven and eight discuss the Tenrikyo European Seminar: an annual three-week training program held at TEC which welcomes followers (or people otherwise connected to Tenrikyo) coming as students and staff from multiple European countries²⁹. These spiritual trainings function, in practice, as intensive gatherings of people included in Tenrikyo's presence in Europe with core members of the “TEC community” coming to help with the orchestration of the seminar as staff and with a smaller collection of people who take part in the program as students, including occasionally “core members” of the “TEC community”- most often the young adult children of Japanese missionary families who grew up in Europe.

<footnote n="26">²⁶ Lineage-based sites each have a designated day of the month on which they orchestrate their Monthly Services. Sites in Europe had their designated Monthly Service days different than the designated day for this ritual of the Monthly Service, thereby allowing people to attend both.</footnote>

<footnote n="27">²⁷ The existence of a lineage-based site is dependent on its founding, which involves certain requirements; the founding of a mission station is chiefly based on an agreement between the founder of the mission station, who will serve as its head, and the head of the lineage-based site which will serve as its supervising entity. Thus, no additional “members” of a mission station need be counted for it to hold this designation, however this ambiguous demarcation of religious identity is defined.</footnote>

<footnote n="28">²⁸ This was the only site in Europe to be categorized as a “branch church” (bun kyōkai), which is a larger and hierarchically higher category of lineage-based site in comparison to the other twenty-two lineage-based sites in Europe, which are all categorized as “mission stations” (fukyōsho).</footnote>
In chapter seven, I primarily discuss the orchestration of this event and how multiple components of it were conducive to community formation, with my ethnographic focus largely directed toward my first year of participation in it. Then, in chapter eight, I offer ethnographic vignettes of its participants to provide examples of people who contributed to the micro-context of this annual training, and extendedly, the social world of TEC. I discuss the personal situations of the three people, along with myself, who comprised the English-language student cohort the first year of my participation and three of the four people with whom I participated in the French-language student cohort the second year of my participation. I also discuss the collection of followers who served as instructors for a portion of this program, with particular focus accorded to the “guest instructors” who came to teach a portion of the English-language cohort during my two years of participation in this training, with both of these individuals raised in the US and of Japanese ancestry.

Chapters nine and ten comprise the fourth and last section of my text, after which I offer some reflections in a short conclusion. These final two chapters take the reader to the pilgrimage town of Tenri City, Japan. Although my research was based primarily in Europe, it was inseparably connected with the home of this faith, located in Tenri City. As I discuss in a subsection of chapter nine, while the conglomeration of people who I collectively refer to as the “TEC community” was primarily interconnected through their mutually held linkages to TEC, this “community” was, in fact, bi-local. It was constructed through both the imagined and experientially lived connection that many of its members, most notably its core members, had to both TEC and to Tenri City. This chiefly bi-local community construction was promoted by collectively shared moments between numerous of its members that occurred there, again most notably core members. In these final two chapters, an important element of my discussion concerns how being in Tenri City and taking part in various experiences there encouraged a sense of connection with the religion and with other followers.

Chapter nine discusses various aspects of this pilgrimage town which demonstrate the connection between Tenrikyo sites and followers elsewhere and this religiously focused location, along with several of the main components generally included in the experience of being there. These

<footnote n="29">²⁹ Along with, in my observations, several followers based in the U.S and Japan.</footnote>
components include the three primary sanctuaries located in the center of this pilgrimage town dedicated to the ancestors, God the Parent, and the foundress; I discuss the latter two figures slightly later. I argue that by these three spiritual entities being materially honored in large form through these sanctuaries, and in a much smaller form through the altars that represent these entities at Tenrikyo sites elsewhere, there was a materially manifested connection between them<fnref n="30" /> and that this was one of the numerous ways through which in being at a Tenrikyo sites elsewhere, including TEC and the lineage-based sites in Europe, one was intrinsically connected with Tenri City.

In chapter nine, I also discuss the “real” Monthly Service performed in Tenri City in the Main Sanctuary around the sacred point of the “Jiba” that is positioned in the faith, as I will expand upon first in chapter one and then in later parts of this thesis, as the location at which humans came into existence, thereby rendering this point our original home, the point from which global salvation will come about, and moreover the point at which “God the Parent” resides. Followers commonly include attendance of this ritual in their pilgrimage visits to Tenri City, evidenced by this town becoming much more enlivened with followers coming from elsewhere in the days leading up to this ritual.

Important to this chapter is my focus on the emotional and conceptual significance of this pilgrimage town to Tenrikyo followers. Additionally, I also discuss the “followers’ dormitories” (*tsumesho 詰所*) there. Each church lineage has its own followers’ dormitory where followers of their respective lineages “coming home” to Tenri City generally stay. These dormitories are pertinent to my overall discussion because they provide insight to the dual-connection Tenrikyo followers included in the “TEC community” had to both the social world of the TEC and to that of their church lineage. Furthermore, these followers’ dormitories also convey another instance of how staying communally with others in a religiously focused residential environment is a commonly present component of the overall Tenrikyo experience, as demonstrated through earlier discussed instances of this at TEC.

<footnote n="30">³⁰ Most, but not all, Tenrikyo sites have all three altars. Some smaller, newer sites do not have an altar dedicated to the ancestors, and to a lesser degree, some also do not have an altar for the foundress. In such cases, this was due to the expense of the altar and/or constraints of available space.</footnote>
I also include in chapter nine my experience elsewhere in Japan of visiting the directly supervising church and its “parent” grand church of my “home site”<fnref n="31" />.” I discuss these visits in this chapter because for followers coming from overseas locations, particularly those highly involved in the religion, and in my observations of people in my research population, also those who travelled to Tenri City for the first time, visiting such “parent” sites was often included in the overall trip to Japan, for which such first-timers were often accompanied by their spiritual parent (of their spiritual parent’s spouse, as was the case in my own experience<fnref n="32" />). Similar to numerous other core members of my research population, the parent church of my designated home site was where the family of my “spiritual parent” had lived for multiple generations, thus rendering his connection to this site more than purely “religious.” I also discuss my visit to the church where the wife of the man officially positioned as my spiritual parent<fnref n="33" /> was raised. The church was headed by her father and previously, by his patrilineal predecessors in accordance with the most commonly followed Tenrikyo model of lineage-based leadership positions being passed from father to eldest son<fnref n="34" />. In contrast to the two hierarchically positioned supervising churches of my designated home site, my visit to this third church was less reflective of the typical experience of someone from overseas going to Tenri City for the first time as this site was not of the lineage to which I was rooted.

After giving a broad overview of Tenri City and various aspects involved in the experience of making pilgrimages there in chapter nine, in chapter ten, I discuss specified reasons for which Tenrikyo followers (or people somehow associated with the religion), including members of the “TEC community,” spend time in this pilgrimage town. These specified reasons include both spiritual and academic training programs and a variety of special events held there. Having taken part in numerous of these specified reasons for being in Tenri City was a common component in the lives of the collection of people who together composed the “TEC community.” I argue that

<footnote n="31">³¹ My “home site” refers to the lineage-based site in the Paris area at which I attended Monthly Services throughout the course of my fieldwork.</footnote>

<footnote n="32">³² To be more precise, I was also accompanied by the older brother of my “spiritual parent” during part of my trip.</footnote>

<footnote n="33">³³ In practice, they assumed this role jointly.</footnote>

<footnote n="34">³⁴ As is common for Tenrikyo women, upon marriage, reflective of the general “household” model of Japanese culture, she was then no longer part of this church, its connected lineage, nor to her natal household, but to those of the man she married.</footnote>
these mutually shared experiences, and in certain cases, the experience of having taken part in the
training or event with other group members, was a contributing factor to the creation and
development of their social bonds. In regard to these training programs, the religious content they
conveyed, particularly in the case of spiritual trainings and academic programs that included
study of the Tenrikyo faith, promoted a shared conceptual framework associated with this faith
based in the realm of the imaginary that encouraged social linkages between followers who
shared this framework.

The most prominent of these spiritual trainings are the invariably identical Besseki lectures
delivered in a specific hall for this purpose. As stated previously, having attended nine of these
lectures is the main requirement to be eligible to undergo the rite through which one becomes a
Yoboku. These lectures convey key aspects of the faith's teachings, with the theory being that
through repeated exposure to these lectures and the spiritual content therein, the attendees'
"spiritual maturity<fnref n="35" />" is advanced. The status of being a Yoboku is an important feature of the
construction of religious identity which I will reference at numerous points of my thesis. To
briefly explain this designation, a person with this status is able to perform a type of faith healing
known as the "Sazuke," which is one of the key components of the Tenrikyo faith. In practice,
though not officially, this designation is often associated with being a fully initiated adult
member of the religion.

The repetitive process of attending these nine identical Besseki lectures provides a prominent
example of a notable pedagogical model of Tenrikyo in which a person is formed and spiritually
developed through repetitive experiential exposure over time. Followers living in Japan<fnref n="36" /> are only
able to attend the Besseki lectures once a month, thereby making the process span over a
minimum of nine months. I sometimes heard followers, particularly Japanese followers closely
implicated in the religion, explain this to be akin to it taking nine months for a baby to form

<footnote n="35">³⁵ Japanese: (kokoro no) seijin (心の成人). In Japanese, the word "seijin" generally refers to the attainment of maturity or adulthood itself. ("Kokoro no" translates to "of the heart/mind"). In Tenrikyo literature, the term comes to have a deeper connotation of spiritual maturity, which often includes the idea that by increasing one's "spiritual maturity," one is becoming more human, meaning human in the way God the Parent created us to be.</footnote>

<footnote n="36">³⁶ Followers coming from overseas locations are permitted to attend these lectures consecutively in a shorter span of time due to an allowance made in consideration of the potential difficulty for followers to come to Tenri City from overseas nine separate times.</footnote>
inside their mothers' womb. One simply needs to be present at these lectures (even if one sleeps through a portion) to acquire eligibility to become a Yoboku. It is very much the physical attendance of these lectures, rather than how they are intellectually received, that is in the forefront of importance. Similarly, from a more global perspective of Tenrikyo, it is through people's enacted engagements in faith-based practices and activities by which their religious affiliation was largely defined. As I will expand upon later, this shows that "being a member" of Tenrikyo is not exclusively, or even primarily, positioned in the realm of belief, but rather, is strongly associated with what one *does*.

In addition to several other spiritual trainings held in this pilgrimage town that I discuss, I also look at the academic trainings that occur there, largely via two high schools and one university affiliated with the religion<fnref n="37" /> that numerous members of my research population had attended, or in the case of younger group members, were attending or planning to attend in the future. Among other contributions to the formation of people who attended these schools was that they provided a context through which they lived in Tenri City for multiple years, thereby deepening their experiential connection to the town. Furthermore, social connections formed during these periods contributed to an expansive network of Tenrikyo people, many of whom were from families highly involved in the faith, such as by heading Tenrikyo churches, and with many of these alumni going on to later hold roles in the religious organization, including at TEC.

In this chapter, I will also discuss several specific events that were held in Tenri City during the span of my fieldwork in which numerous members of my research population participated and which more generally functioned as gatherings of various segments of Tenrikyo's international presence. I reference the 130th anniversary of the foundress' "withdrawal from physical life," which I participated in via distance with others at TEC while approximately thirty members of the TEC community, almost all of whom I position as "core members," attended the event in person. I also include two international gatherings that occurred in Tenri City while I was there. One was the Young Men's Association Hinokishin Corps, which I did not participate in because I am not a man. The other was a two-day symposium for English-speaking followers throughout the

<footnote n="37">³⁷ These Tenrikyo schools are recognized as accredited academic institutions by the Japanese government.</footnote>
Tenrikyo diaspora, which I did take part in as I am an English speaker and relatedly, was encouraged to do so.

Additionally, I accord a more extensive look at the “Children’s Pilgrimage to Jiba<fnref n="38" />” festival, which I participated in with about forty members of the TEC community as a group. In addition to participation in this festival being a part people’s mutually shared experiential lexicon that encouraged social connections via perceived commonalities, it was also an important ongoing mechanism of community construction and continuation of the group on which my research was based. Thinking about their collective participation provides us with a prominent example of the bi-local (or more) nature of the experiences that solidified the involved individuals together as a collective group in which although this “community” was primarily based at TEC, its ongoing social world was multilocal.

First though, before exploring the precise context on which my research was focused, I will hereafter ground the reader in my research context by means of a foundational introductory section. As previously explained, in the first chapter of this section, I accord my focus primarily to the early history of this religious tradition during the life of its foundress and the early developments of the faith. The second chapter, then, will focus on providing the reader with a basic overview of Tenrikyo theology and practice, along with discussion of the initial efforts to spread the faith to Europe via England at the beginning of the 20th century and the founding of TEC approximately fifty years later. Also included is an exploration of numerous ways “membership” in the Tenrikyo faith can be determined and connectedly, the difficulty in accurately ascertaining the number of “members” globally or in any given location.

<footnote n="38">³⁸ *Kodomo o jiba gaeri*. I will sometimes refer to this festival as the “Children’s Pilgrimage festival” for linguistic brevity rather than its full name of the “Children’s Pilgrimage to Jiba” festival.</footnote>
# SECTION I: INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH CONTEXT

## Chapter one: The beginnings of Tenrikyo: a “Japanese new religion”

In this introductory section, a significant portion of the information I present is included in structured Tenrikyo trainings that are commonly undergone by Tenrikyo followers, including the majority of people I position as “core members” of the “TEC community,” as well as a significant number of those socially situated in more of the periphery of this multi-layered social group. Because of this, not only am I explaining the early history of this religious movement which helps to contextualize Tenrikyo as it exists in modern-day, but I am also putting forth components that exist in the collective imagination of Tenrikyo followers, including many of those included in my research population. This conceptualization by its followers influences how this religion is lived and experienced.

In this section and throughout this thesis, I discuss information concerning Tenrikyo, most notably that of its theology, put forth by the religion as fact. This is reflective of my position as an anthropologist in which my focus is on the social realties of those I study rather than on the “truth” of these realities, particularly in the realm of complex theological assertions which I regard as beyond the scope of my present analysis. It is chiefly for this reason that my discussion of the Tenrikyo religion is primarily put forth from an emic perspective rather than one looking at Tenrikyo from the outside for which I would accord more analytic focus, for example, to Tenrikyo’s developments in relation to broader societal developments and other religious movements in Japan around the same time.

In this introductory grounding section, the historical information is mainly borrowed from The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo (1996) whereas the doctrinal information is mainly from The Doctrine of Tenrikyo (1993), although there is some crossover with each category taking information from both books. As I will discuss later in this text, these books are commonly utilized official Tenrikyo references published by Tenrikyo Church Headquarters which followers are often exposed to, such as in structured religious trainings that are largely focused on the study of these works. In my own experience, my familiarity with these works largely came from attentively reading through them in classes focused on them, supplemented with lectures and
discussions on them, through participating twice in the three-week Tenrikyo European Seminar held at TEC annually. For the sake of brevity, I often do not include specific citations for general Tenrikyo information, particularly in the first part of this introductory grounding chapter.

a. Founding of the Path

Tenrikyo was founded by an agrarian Japanese woman named Miki Nakayama<fnref n="39" /> who was born on the 18th day of the fourth month of 1798 in Sanmaiden Provence (present-day Nara Prefecture). In Tenrikyo literature, she is commonly described as having been diligent in household work and a devout adherent of Jodo Shin Buddhism since early childhood. In 1810, she married Zenbei Nakayama at the age of thirteen and moved to his family's residence in the nearby village of Shoyashiki (present-day Tenri City). Miki was initially opposed to entering into this marital union as she wished to become a Buddhist nun, but eventually complied with her parents' wishes for her to do so. In 1813, shortly after entering this marriage and becoming part of her husband's household, she was entrusted with the running of this household, which is explained in Tenrikyo discourse to be noteworthy in relation to her young age and evidence of her impressive character. Then, in 1821, she gave birth to her first child, a son named Shuji, and subsequently to five daughters, two of whom died early (Tenrikyo Doyusha Publishing Company 2014:1-27 [cited in Kato 2017a]).

In 1837, Shuji was afflicted with leg pain. To address this ailment, the Nakayama family called upon a *shugen* (ritual practitioner associated with a mountain religious sect) who performed prayer rituals for him intermittently over the following year. On the 23rd day of the 10th month, an incantation (*yosekaji*) was performed for Shuji with his mother, Miki, serving as the spirit medium needed for this ritual. His mother only served in this role as a last-minute improvisation because the woman who usually functioned as the medium in these healing ceremonies was not available on that particular day. During this ritual, as is explained in Tenrikyo doctrine, God descended into Miki and expressed through her, as is cited in the faith: "I am God of Origin, God in Truth. There is causality in this Residence. At this time I have descended here to save all

<footnote n="39">³⁹ Nakayama is the name of the family she was married into.</footnote>
humankind. I wish to receive Miki as the Shrine of God<fnref n="40" />.” (The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo 1996: 1). Over the next three days, Miki remained static in the same spot, gripping the *gohei*<fnref n="41" /> she had been holding when this divine force unexpectedly entered her, at times sitting calmly, and at times conveying God’s will with severity<fnref n="42" />.

During this time, Miki’s husband and other male members of the Nakayama family engaged in extensive deliberation regarding what to do about this strange and difficult matter. That it was men of the Nakayama family who converged about whether or not to accept God’s request to receive Miki as its<fnref n="43" /> Shrine is reflective of the patriarchal cultural system of that time and place, which charged males with the responsibility of making major decisions concerning their family group. Miki played a vital role in running the household of this prominent family and was caring for their young children. Thus, it would be a great hardship for their family to accept God’s request to use her in this manner as she played a central role in this collectively functioning group.

Despite these men’s reticence, which is explained to have been out of pragmatic concern over the likely loss of her filling an important role in the household, God, as communicated through Miki, would not accept her husband’s initial refusals to allow her to serve as the Shrine of God; at times becoming frightfully intense with this unwavering demand. Finally, three days after God descended into Miki, against the council of his relatives, her husband, fearful that his refusal may cost his wife’s life, accepted God’s request, saying, “I offer Miki to You.” (The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo 1996: 7). On this day, the 26th day of the tenth month of 1838, Miki was “settled as the Shrine of God.” This day is regarded in the Tenrikyo religion as the day of its founding. When speaking of Miki Nakayama after this moment, I refer to her as “the foundress,”

<footnote n="40">⁴⁰ kami no yashiro 神のやしろ</footnote>

<footnote n="41">⁴¹ Gohei are cut or folded wooden streamers used for spiritual purposes, commonly associated with Shinto.</footnote>

<footnote n="42">⁴² Along with Tenrikyo, the founders of the other Japanese new religions of Omotokyo, Konkokyo, Reiyukai, and Rissho Koseikai also had their first religious experiences by being “possessed” while participating in faith healing ceremonies performed for themselves or their relatives (Watanabe and Igeta 1991: 253).</footnote>

<footnote n="43">⁴³ My use of the pronoun “it” for God is something I will explain slightly later.</footnote>
or occasionally by the name she is commonly referred to by her followers: “Oyasama<fnref n="44" />” (“our beloved parent,”) which I will elaborate on slightly later.

*The foundress as the “Divine Model”: adherence to and departure from the established order*

The next fifty years of the foundress’ life are referred to in Tenrikyo as the “Divine Model” (*hinagata*). It is purported in the faith that during this time, her mind was in complete accordance with God’s will. During the first three years following this momentous religious event, she secluded herself in a storehouse, thereby neglecting her household duties of wife and mother. Later, following the divine command conveyed by God the Parent (a referential term I will explain in the next subsection) through the foundress: “Fall to the depths of poverty,” she began giving away their household belongings and insisted, eventually successfully, upon the dismantling of their household residence, where in present-day, the “Main Sanctuary” of this religion now stands (The Life of the Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo 1996).

As is recounted in Tenrikyo discourse, the foundress’ husband, who was the head of the Nakayama household and thereby charged with making important decisions concerning the collective group, initially refused God the Parent’s commands conveyed over time to take down different parts of their large residential structure. This familial home had been passed down in the Nakayama family for multiple generations from his ancestors and thus, its dismantlement would, according to normal human thinking<fnref n="45" />, not only be a hardship for his collective family group living there at present but would also be an afront to his ancestors who had built up this structure of familial wealth and passed it on to their descendants over multiple generations.

He was persuaded to obey God the Parent’s first command to dismantle a part of it only after the foundress fell ill following his initial refusal to do so and was confined to bed for twenty days, rejecting all food, then several times again afterwards, with her husband acquiescing only because the dire repercussions to the foundress if he did not heed these requests were too great (The Life

<footnote n="44">⁴⁴ “Oya” is a gender-neutral word meaning “parent.” “Sama” is an honorary Japanese suffix attached to names to express a great amount of respect and\or status.</footnote>

<footnote n="45">⁴⁵ The differentiation between “human thinking” and the intention of God the Parent is a component of Tenrikyo discourse.</footnote>
of Oyasama: Foundress of Tenrikyo 1996: chapter three). The dates when this sequential
dismantling occurred is not precisely specified in commonly circulated Tenrikyo literature other
than it being somewhat more than ten years prior to the building of the initial structure dedicated
to the Service ritual in 1864. It is explained in the religion that the foundress coming to live at this
location (through an arranged marriage that she was initially opposed to entering into) and her
divine revelation to tear down this residential structure were both due to the sacred point of the
Jiba being located there, which would thereafter be revealed in 1875.

To understand the significance of the foundress' husband agreeing to dismantle their familial
home, one must look at the socio-historic context in which it occurred. The Edo period (1603-
1868), the tail end of which coincided with the initial years of Tenrikyo, is often asserted to be
what made Japan, Japan, including its shaping of gender expectations which continue to influence
how gender is constructed and lived presently in Japanese society. Somewhat prior to this period,
the influx of Confucian ideas from China are commonly asserted to have eroded women's ability
to hold power. These ideas promoted hierarchy, male dominance, integrity, and righteousness and
rendered women subservient (Sugihara and Katsurada 2000). Among numerous others, the
introduction of the Confucian ideal of the patriarchal and patrilineal family that had long been
dominant in China to Japan presented a major challenge to traditional Japanese approaches to
gender roles and relationships. More precisely, the adoption of Chinese law codes first eroded the
control that Japanese women were able to exercise regarding their own children, and eventually,
to their overall status relative to males (Stearns 2015).

The “household” (*ie*) system, which I discuss extensively in chapter six, largely in relation to the
organizational model of Tenrikyo “lineages,” originated in Confucian China and continues, to a
large extent, to be followed in modern-day Japan. This system is generally thought to have come
about sometime around the beginning of the Edo period<fnref n="46" />. In this system, the household is
patrilocal, patrilineal, and patriarchal<fnref n="47" />. Prior to this system, women could generally maintain

<footnote n="46">⁴⁶ Exactly when the *ie* system became widely established in Japan is a somewhat complicated issue that I choose to omit an in-depth exploration of because it is not pertinent to my study.</footnote>

<footnote n="47">⁴⁷ In modern Japan, it is possible for households to be passed on to and/or headed by women in marital contexts, but this is rarely practiced, with the motivation to do so usually being that a family only has female children to continue their lineage/ household.</footnote>
more autonomy in property ownership and personal identification. In the *ie* system, although households are largely female run, their recognized heads are male, thereby creating a duality of official and externally recognized leadership being male while unofficially, households were, and remain to be, largely operated by women and a female domain.

An illuminative insight into ideal gender roles during the Edo period, or more specifically, those of women, can be seen in *Onna Daigaku* (The Great Learning for Women), an educational text on the role of women in the family and in society that was frequently gifted to new brides during this period, with the oldest version dating to 1729. In this text, it is stated that “men pursue their duties without, while women govern within.” Through the *ie* system, husband and wife were supposed to form a harmonious complementarity of roles by which their household would prosper. This ideal of the complementarity of male and female roles is also a prominent component of Tenrikyo, expressed through the concept of two-in-one (*futatsu-hitotsu*) relationships, which I will come back to at various points of my text, most notably in chapter four.

The Edo period also featured the societal division of people by social classes, one of which was the “peasant class” of farmers, of which the Nakayama family was one of high rank. In this social class, families were focused on increasing (or at least maintaining) their wealth and honor *within* their class rather than breaking class boundaries by moving up to an entirely different higher class. Their dream of wealth and honor remained tied to their home and farm, and these ambitions were coupled with the fear of losing everything (Katsumi 1980). Thus, the voluntary sequential dismantling of the Nakayama family’s residential structure, which only occurred after the foundress’ husband gave his permission to do so, despite his and his family’s opposition, demonstrates the coexistence of the divine power which occupied the foundress and the respect accorded to the patrilineal and patriarchal household system.

Furthermore, connected to the fact that in the *ie* system of the foundress’ time the household was more important than any single member, the foundress’ husband’s agreement to dismantle the Nakayama family’s residential structure (and wealth) is rendered even more in contrast to the societal norms in place at that time, which the foundress’ teachings are commonly explained to be aimed at reshaping so that we may draw closer to constructing the world of the Joyous Life. As
we can see in relation to the importance that was placed on prioritizing the wealth and status of the collective household over any one member's individual interests, particularly a woman who had married into the family, her husband granting his accord to this seemingly bizarre request conveyed by his wife was a significant transgression against both societal norms and gender roles.

In any age, it is a matter of great difficulty for a family to sell its dwelling, but much more so in those days, when to honor things transmitted from father to son was deemed the most important of all filial duties. For Zenbei<fnref n="48" />, therefore, who was one of the great landowners in the village and who also held the position of village headman, it was simply disquieting that anyone, even God the Parent, should order him to pull down the mansion handed down to him by his forefathers... They (Zenbei's friends and relatives) minced no words in their vehement remonstration (against the dismantling of his familial home), telling him that if he said, after dismantling the mansion, that he had done it because he had been ordered to do so by a woman whom he had taken into the family as his wife, not only would he be at a loss as to what to say to his ancestors, but he was also sure to fall in stature in the public estimation. Some of them even carried the matter further, telling him that they would break all ties with him if he did not refrain from doing such a thing. (The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo 1996: 21).

That her husband finally acquiesced to this request is often framed as evidence of both the urgency of following this command from God the Parent in relation to what it would have meant otherwise, most notably to his wife who was serving as the Shrine of God, which had also first necessitated his permission, and relatedly, how seriously he took his wife being occupied by this divine force. It is explained in Tenrikyo that he tried several times to drive out the evil, or otherwise mischievous, spirit from her if this was, in fact, the culprit of her present state because of the extreme hardship that his wife's spiritual occupation was causing. Once these efforts proved futile, as it is explained in the faith, his conviction was increased that she was truly conveying the words of God the Parent.

This duality of feminine and masculine power that is a prominent theme of Tenrikyo, in concert with the Japanese *ie* system which generally positions males as the heads of their collective group, helps to contextualize the central role that the foundress holds in the faith being coupled with the religion's being primarily male. This coupling of the maternal love and divine strength

<footnote n="48">⁴⁸ Zenbei was the first name of the foundress' husband.</footnote>
ascribed to the foundress (i.e. our original and ever-living benevolent mother) and leadership roles in the religion being generally occupied by men can be extended to gender roles that are common in this religion. Although women usually occupy less prominent positions, from an internal perspective, the supportive “foundational” role which they occupy, generally thought to be best filled by women who have been bestowed with feminine qualities<fnref n="50" />, is held to be equally important, though different, to the roles generally filled by men.

As noted by Kato (2017b), despite the Tenrikyo faith<fnref n="51" /> originating from religious teachings conveyed by a woman, it has developed and maintained a predominantly male-centric organizational structure, for example, with only one female to have held a *Honbuin* (Tenrikyo Church Headquarters official) position (Watanabe 2015: 15). While the foundress included among her numerous teachings that males and females are both necessary and equal, something which I heard Japanese followers explain on occasion to have been revolutionary at that time in Japan, she largely maintained conventional gender roles, with women being primarily associated with the domestic sphere and motherhood and men being associated with roles in the broader society, including leadership roles in the religion. She also emphasized marriage as the ideal way of life for most adults. Despite the rather defined gender roles and familial model she put forth as being generally best suited to people’s nature, happiness, and spiritual growth, these gendered life models were not absolute imperatives and there were instances in which the foundress encouraged individuals to pursue other life models, thereby promoting doctrinal room for case-dependent variations.

Coming back to the budding development of the spiritual path that was being slowly put forth by the foundress, as explained previously, after she became the Shrine of God serving as an ideal model of human existence, her actions, such as notably her insistence that her family should purposefully fall into poverty, elicited suspicion and disapproval from her relatives and others in the village. Then, slightly after the dismantling of the Nakayama residential structure, in 1854,

<footnote n="49">⁴⁹ In Tenrikyo, women are regarded as the foundation of the collective whole, whether that be a marital relationship, a family, a group of Tenrikyo followers, etc.</footnote>

<footnote n="50">⁵⁰ In Tenrikyo, there is not a rigid view of gender in relation to masculinity and femininity and it is generally held that men can possess feminine qualities and vice-versa to varying degree, depending on the individual.</footnote>

<footnote n="51">⁵¹ The foundress did not use the name “Tenrikyo” as a label for her teachings.</footnote>
the foundress bestowed her first act of mystical healing, that of the Grant of Safe Childbirth (*obiya yurushi*), intended to ensure safe childbirth without the observation of traditional customs and taboos associated with women's defilement (*kegare*) (Tenrikyo Doyusha Publishing Company 2014:40-70 [cited in Kato 2017a]). As postulated by Watanabe (2015: 27 [cited in Kato 2017b]), among others, the foundress may have used this practice to convey to those around her the idea that “divine providence” is most evident in the body of a woman during pregnancy, which embodies the fundamentally passive nature of the human body. On occasion throughout my fieldwork, I also heard that her first act of bestowal of “miraculous salvation” being one that was exclusively for women was to demonstrate the importance of women in the male-dominated society in which she was conveying her teachings.

Also included in the foundress' teachings through her lived example serving as the Divine Model that overrode conventional customs is that she is said to have included people of the outcast *Buraku* group in her interactions with people seeking healings. This, too, was a significant breech against established societal taboos and further led to her ostracism from others in the village (Kato 2017b, Ikeda 2006 [cited in Kato 2017b]). During this stage of the foundress' conveyance of the faith, she is reported to have been repeatedly confronted, at times with violence, by doctors and mountain ascetics who were losing clients to her and the mystical healing she bestowed. (Tenrikyo Doyusha Publishing Company 2014 [cited in Kato 2017a]). Hardacre (1994) puts forth an interesting supposition that the opposition she encountered was related to the foundress' presence as a female religious leader being a challenge to the mountain ascetics' male-oriented religious authority.

*Revealing sacrality through spatial, textual, conceptual, and enacted means*

After the dismantling of the foundress' familial residential structure, upon the initiative of the foundress' main disciple, a carpenter named Izo Iburi, the construction of the *Tsutome Basho* ("place for performing religious Services") began in 1864 in the same spot where the Nakayamas' residential structure had stood. Then, in 1866, the foundress began to teach her

<footnote n="52">⁵² Fushigina tasuke</footnote>
followers the Service ritual (tsutome)<fnref n="53" />. These sacred songs and their accompanying dances, collectively known as the Mikagura-uta (“Songs for the Service,”) which I will further discuss later, were taught by the foundress between 1866 and 1875 and are positioned as a centrally important part of the faith’s practice and one of the three Tenrikyo scriptures⁵⁴. Through them, “performers portray and spiritually enact religious symbols through the use of their bodies in the Service.” (Kato 2017a: 60). These ritual songs and dances would come to be performed at the sacred point of the “Jiba<fnref n="55" />” that was identified by the foundress in 1875, in the place where her family’s residential structure had stood, as the precise point at which the original conception of humans had occurred through the workings of God the Parent, who still resides at that point (Kato 2017b). Later, the Main Sanctuary of Tenrikyo that currently serves as the principal religious structure of this faith was built around the Jiba in segments from 1911 until 1984 (Tenrikyo Resource Wiki: 2012-April).

During the period that the foundress was conveying the Mikagura-uta songs and dances to her followers, this budding faith was undergoing significant development and expansion in response to the opposition that the foundress and her followers were being confronted with. Despite the foundress' reluctance, her followers sought to gain official authorization from the Yoshida Administrative Office of Shinto (Yoshida Jingi Kanryo) in Kyoto so that they could hold gatherings at their private residence without hindrance. Official authorization was granted from

<footnote n="53">⁵³ The period surrounding the beginning of the Meiji era (1868) was one of significant societal change and upheaval in Japan that was accompanied by numerous mystical, salvific, prophetic movements. “The year leading up to the revolution of 1868 was full of bizarre and miraculous events. Amulets rained from the sky in Kyoto and Osaka. (Brady note: *The village where Tenrikyo was founded, that would later come to be known as Tenri City, is located approximately 60 km from Kyoto and 50 km from Osaka.*) Prophets swept through the land preaching the arrival of the Future Buddha (*Miroku*)... Famines, droughts, and fires plagued the nation... starvation led to further unrest... It was rumored that, in their anger at the polluting presence of foreigners, the gods had begun spreading disease and calamity, which led to mass pilgrimages to sacred shrines. Common to many of these movements was a radical disjunction; reality, increasingly dreamlike and decayed, was in need of regeneration. They labeled this coming change “world renewal” (*yanaoshi*), a phrase used in rural protest to describe the radically transformed world that would accompany the presence of the new Buddha.” (Josephson 2012: 130).</footnote>

<footnote n="55">⁵⁵ In Tenrikyo discourse, “Jiba” is written with syllabic hiragana characters (ちば), but as I heard it explained during a religious training at TEC, the two kanji characters (場所) that would be used to write this word translate to something like “place, place,” which in this explanation was said to be thought to strongly emphasize the importance of this specific place.</footnote>
this body in 1867, but then was voided slightly later in 1870 when this administrative office was
abolished (Kato 2017b, Tenrikyo Doyusha Publishing Company 2014 [cited in Kato 2017a]).
This was the faith's first formalized association with the category of Shinto that would be
revisited again multiple times in what is framed, in modern discourse, to have been out of
pragmatic necessity rather than being a truly appropriate categorical association.

Also around this time, from 1869 until 1882, through divine inspiration, the foundress wrote a
text composed of 1,711 verses in seventeen parts written in the *waka* style of poetry known as the
*Ofudesaki* (“Tip of the Writing Brush”). This text is also regarded as one of the faith’s “Three
Scriptures,” with the third being the *Osashizu* scriptures that were conveyed somewhat later and
which I discuss slightly later in this subsection. During this period, in 1874, the foundress began
to wear red clothes (*akaki*). This sartorial act is explained in Tenrikyo discourse to have been a
turning point in the religion’s development as it was quite unusual at the time for an old woman
to dress in red clothes and is positioned as an occurrence that marks the foundress’ public
declaration of herself as the Shrine of God. Her commonly cited words on this development are
as follows:

> Until now, since I kept Myself behind a bamboo screen, nothing was able to be seen.
> This time, as I have come out into brightness, everything will be seen quickly.
> What do you think of these red clothes? Tsukihi<fnref n="56" /> dwells within. (Ofudesaki VI:61–63)

In this same year, the foundress began to bestow various forms of “the truth of the Sazuke” (“the
Divine Grant,”) which allowed her followers to conduct healing prayers for those suffering from
illness<sup>57</sup> (Kato 2017b, Tenrikyo Doyusha Publishing Company 2014 [cited in Kato 2017a]). This,
too, I will expand upon later in this text. Somewhat later, in 1881, the foundress began the
construction of the *Kanrodai* (the Stand for Heavenly Dew), which materially is a hexagonal
stand of thirteen stone blocks marking the sacred point of the Jiba. After the stones for this

<footnote n="56">⁵⁶ Tsukihi (literally: moon sun) was the second name of God conveyed through the foundress.</footnote>

<footnote n="57">⁵⁷ Also in 1874, the Japanese Ministry issued another proclamation in article 22, which stated: “Healing by means of prayer rituals [kin'en kito] are obstructing the government and are prohibited henceforth.” (Kyobusho 22, 7.6.7, Horei Sensho, cited in Josephson 2012: 181). Josephson (ibid.) argues the terms of other ordinances issued by the Ministry of Doctrine in the same period suggest that the agency's chief aim in this proclamation was probably not to eliminate obstacles to Western medicine but to regulate practices at temples and shrines and to suppress noninstitutional charismatic leaders.</footnote>
religious marker were confiscated by the police in 1882, the construction of this stand was halted (Kato 2017b, Tenrikyo Doyusha Publishing Company 2014 [cited in Kato 2017a]). Subsequently, a wooden replica of the kanrodai has been used in its place, which is replaced occasionally as needed due to weathering of the wood, until present. Another notable development in this spiritual path being increasingly put forth by the foundress at this time was that from about 1880/1881, she began to orally convey various stories to her followers that contained divine teachings, which they transcribed and are known in the religion as the *kōki* (the Divine Record) (Kato 2017a, Tenrikyo Doyusha Publishing Company 2014 [cited in Kato 2017a]). Notably included in the *kōki* was Tenrikyo's creation story, which is further discussed in the next subsection.

## b. Becoming a “religion”

### The establishment of the category of “religion” in Japan

During this period of the faith's rapid development, when the foundress was increasing her prominence, teachings, and increasingly attracting new people to the spiritual path she was putting forth, the foundress and her followers also encountered significant surveillance and prosecution from political authorities as a non-authorized religious group. This was to a great extent a result of the broader societal changes that came about through the Meiji Restoration (1868), which was largely focused on modernizing the country, and connectedly, included an officialized differentiation between formalized religions and folk beliefs and the prohibition of faith healing (that was commonly part of the latter “religious category”) in favor of medical doctors, despite their lack of accessibility that was a widespread problem at this time<fnref n="58" />.

<footnote n="58">⁵⁸ The difficulty in having access to medical doctors, despite that this was now the means through which people in Japan were supposed to address illness was particularly problematic in relation to the disease epidemics of this period which were exacerbated through increased urbanization and poverty. During this time, the need for medical care was far greater than its availability. Thus, while the Ministry of Doctrine's article 22 discouraged established Buddhist and Shinto sects from engaging in healing rituals, sick and injured people were driven toward the spirit mediums and wandering ascetics this article sought to suppress (Josephson 2012). Josephson (ibid: 182) furthermore states that this situation reached an even greater level of crisis through the massive cholera epidemics of 1879, 1882, 1886, 1890, and 1895, which left more than sixty thousand people dead. He argues that this increased need for healing rituals contributed to the boom in new religious movements and charismatic cults that occurred in the early 1880s (Takeda 1991).</footnote>
The Meiji government was adamant in its systematic attempts to shape the national thought and ethos of Japan (Watanabe and Igeta 1991:189). As put forth by Josephson (2012), one of the highest priorities of the Meiji government after coming into power was to modify international relationships and amend unpopular trade agreements which were impeded by the recently signed treaties' basis in international law that officially arranged countries in a hierarchy as civilized, barbaric, or primitive. This classification was consistent with the "scientific" views of this era, particularly as reflected in the writing of Herbert Spencer. Japan was legally positioned as a barbaric country, largely because it was not a Christian nation. One ramification of this categorization was that foreign nationals from civilized countries existed in a state of juridical extraterritoriality which exempted them from Japanese laws while living in Japan.

Continuing to rely on Josephson's 2012 work, as I do liberally throughout my discussion of this period of Japanese history, in order to achieve full status internationally, the Japanese government sought to "civilize" the country. One aspect of this process was the reformation of legal codes. Additionally, there was the larger task of attempting to change its status in the view of foreign powers. Toward this aim, they put forth numerous cultural reformations, such as through the promotion of Western-style haircuts and table manners<fnref n="59" />. These changes were not intended to be solely superficial. Many Japanese leaders believed that "civilization," largely through cultural alterations, was needed for the modernization of the nation. Although the Meiji government during this period did not prohibit magic and intercessory rituals, per se, it would not permit any interference in medical practice or therapy that might result from such beliefs, and new religious

<footnote n="59">⁵⁹ From 1870 to 1872, different regional governments throughout Japan banned the following as "breaches of etiquette" (ishiki) or "evil backward customs" (roshu or kyuuhei): New Year's pine decoration, the practice of visiting a shrine naked in the winter to make offerings to the god of obstacles (Sai no Kami), traditional haircuts, the Echigo lion dance, ritual dances for the planting of rice, dancing nembetsu, dancing and lighting fires for the Bon festival, the Star festival, the Nebuta festival, the festival for sending off the plague gods, the Jizo festival, other offerings to spirits at rivers, festivals associated with occasions of fantastic dress (such as transvestism), festivals to Koseijin, the form of divination particular to the Kiyomizu temple, dog fighting, cock fighting, pornographic images, public urination, public nudity, demonic exorcism (akuma harai), male homosexuality, pilgrims in general, and spirit mediums (miko- which are, by definition, female) (Josephson 2012: 170, compiled from Kawamura [1991: 33-34], Oku [1993: 6-9], and Ogi, Kumakura, and Ueno [1990: 3]). I include this list as a footnote because it shows the vast rage of cultural reformations the Japanese government was instituting at this time.</footnote>
groups were frequently suppressed under the pretext that the groups were engaged in faith
healing<fnref n="60" />.

To further explain the context in which Tenrikyo was developing at that time, I will discuss in
some detail the circumstances of this period of intentional modernization and the appearance in
Japan of the category of “religion” associated with the significant societal reworkings that
occurred during this period, also drawing on Josephson’s 2012 work. When American warships
appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853, despite being aware that this was in direct violation of
Japanese law, reflective of the country’s seclusion policy, they ignored shots fired by cannons in
the bay and subsequently repulsed Japanese boarding parties with threats and brandished
weapons, expressing their unwillingness to leave unless two letters were delivered to the Japanese
emperor. The word “religion” appeared twice in these letters, both times to (falsely) assure the
Japanese that the US had no interest in violating Japan’s centuries-old prohibition of Christianity.
When the translators encountered the word “religion,” they did not know what this word meant as
there was no equivalent term in the Japanese language for something as broad as religion nor a
systematic method of distinguishing between “religions” as members of a general category (ibid:
79).

Essentially, Josephson (2012: 2-4) asserts, Japan got “religion” as a demarcated concept because
it was imposed on them by a treaty. This treaty was the Treaty of Kanagawa signed by Japanese
governmental officials<fnref n="61" /> and Commodore Mathew C. Perry of the United States Navy which
resulted in the opening of two ports to American vessels and the granting of “freedom of
religion,” firstly to Americans residing in Japan, along with numerous other articles aimed at
benefitting the American side and promoting relations between the two countries. Notably, this
meant an end to Japan’s 220-year-old policy of national seclusion during which time foreign
trade was only maintained with the Dutch and the Chinese and conducted exclusively under a

<footnote n="60">⁶⁰ A regulation passed in 1876 that officially required all medical practitioners to have studied Western medicine. This marked the radical elimination of indigenous medical practices, as they were believed to be bad for the health of the nation. The process of training Western-style doctors was slow, though; thus, only wealthy urbanites had access to Western medicine (Josephson 2012: 145-146, 182).</footnote>

<footnote n="61">⁶¹ At the time, it was out of the question for the emperor of Japan to interact in any way with foreigners. Thus, the treaty was concluded between Perry and representatives of the Japanese emperor.</footnote>
strict government monopoly. It also precipitated the signing of similar treaties that established relations with other Western powers.

The Japanese recipients of this demand for freedom of “religion” recognized that Christianity was the main issue at stake yet remained vexed by the unclear meaning of “religion.” The few translation materials available to these officials offered seemingly contradictory possibilities, including this term referring to cultural customs, essentially a type of education, or simply a name given to rites directed toward the foreigners’ gods (Josephson 2012: 79). They produced multiple translated versions of these letters, in which they rendered “religion” with a range of terms, each of which implying something radically different (ibid: 1). Josephson (2012) argues that in Japan, religion (*shūkyō*<fnref n="62" />) had to be invented and that the concept of “Japanese religions” is a historically conditioned category that was consciously formulated to meet political ends, which I will discuss further slightly later.

For the moment, let it simply be said that for more than thirty years after Perry’s arrival, Japanese intellectuals grappled with the concept of “religion.” Similar to the multiple translations of the term “religion” contained in the translations of Perry’s letters, during this period, they produced numerous translation terms, each implying something different: a type of education, something unknowable, a set of practices, a description of foreign customs, a form of politics, a kind of Shinto, a near synonym for Christianity, a basic human impulse. Josephson (2012: 8) states that the existence of numerous terms with very different meanings suggests that it was far from evident during this initial period of attempting to contend with what analogs corresponded to the Western concept contained in this word. Beyond Japanese intellectuals and translators producing different terms for this concept, they also debated which indigenous traditions and practices belonged to this category.

<footnote n="62">⁶² The word “shūkyō,” which was popularized in Japan in the 1870s as a translation for the Euro-American word “religion” was then exported throughout East Asia. In Chinese, this term was rendered as “ziongjiao” and in Korean as “chonggyo” (Josephson 2012: 7). The transferal of this term was facilitated by the fact that these three languages used the same logographic Chinese characters, referred to in Japanese as “kanji,” in which the meaning of the characters remains constant between languages, but their pronunciation may differ.</footnote>
Continuing with the insights conveyed by Josephson (2012), in the latter part of the 19th century, a new generation of Japanese elites had travelled to Europe and North America where they encountered Christianity firsthand and attained the linguistic skills and textual sources needed to participate in global intellectual currents and contribute to the conceptualization of the concept of “religion” through the application of their acquired knowledge (shaped through their own aims). In Japan’s first academic journal, *Meiroku Zasshi*, a number of future governmental officials argued that modernity involved some form of religious freedom, but that freedom needed to be bound to allow for the purification of “backward customs” and “evil cults” (ibid: 20). Ultimately, the Meiji government declared in the mid-nineteenth century that “Shrine Shinto” did not fall under the category of “religion.”

As explained by Josephson (2012), this allowed for the use of Shinto educational materials and participation in Shinto rituals to be mandatory without breaching guarantees of religious freedom. This move had its origins in discourse of this period that rendered Shinto a science and a matter of fact rather than a contested faith. This resulted, in short, in the allowance of belief in Christianity and some forms of Buddhism, while at the same time, officials consigned the popular practices of “indigenous shaman and female mediums” to the category of “superstition” deserving no protection under “religious freedom” and beyond the sphere of tolerance<fnref n="63" /> (ibid: 21). This is an important point regarding the early difficulties that the budding religious movement which would later come to be known as “Tenrikyo” experienced as its foundress was a female “shaman/medium”-type figure<fnref n="64" />.

<footnote n="63">⁶³ Inoue (1991) notes that one of the most striking features of Japanese new religions is the high number of women acting as founders and current leaders. “The most popular explanation for the high proportion of female members of new religions is the discrimination suffered by women in Japanese society, leading them to resolve personal problems through religious movements. The presence of a powerful tradition of female-centered worship in Japanese religious history is often pointed to as an element lying behind the large number of female founders or current group leaders of new movements.” (p. 21).</footnote>

<footnote n="64">⁶⁴ According to Tenrikyo discourse, the foundress of Tenrikyo was serving as an impromptu medium when God the Parent first took her as its shrine but this was not her usual role. As explained to me by a core member of TEC, although the foundress is sometimes regarded as a shaman by non-Tenrikyo people, according to Tenrikyo dogma, she was something else (the original mother of humanity and Shrine of God).</footnote>
Isomae (2007: 93) also offers an illuminating analysis of the importation and interpretation of
“religion” in Japan:

[U]nder the encroaching dominance of the West... following the principles of Western-style enlightenment, ‘religion’ (*shūkyō*) was entrusted to the sphere of the individual’s interior freedom, while the ‘secular’ sphere of morality (*dotoku*) was determined to be a national, and thus public, issue. With a clear differentiation between the religious and moral categories, being made along the private-public dichotomy, Western modernity came to be comprehended in terms of a dual structure. From the beginning, the very notion of an individual with an interiority was for the first time made possible as a form of self-understanding only through the transplantation of Christianity and the related concept of religion.

Krämer (2013:90) asserts that Isomae’s argument is supported by the wording of key legal texts of the Meiji period, but that it is less clear why and how this specific understanding was introduced to Japan. Or, as Krämer explains is more appropriate to say, how the Western concept of “religion” was appropriated by Japan through complex processes of cultural transfer and translation between Japan and “the West” in the latter half of the nineteenth century. According to Krämer’s analysis, Japanese elites appropriated a certain understanding of religion in the 1870s for their own purposes and with their own agendas. He asserts that the appropriation of “religion” had little to do with Western precedents or debates shaped by Western concerns and that this is made obvious once the little studied question of *why* religion came to be translated as “*shūkyō*” (宗教), rather than by other translation terms that were in use until the second half of the 1870s, is explored.

Around 1869 marked the climax of anti-Buddhist attempts by Shintoists within the central government to establish Shinto as the one and only state religion (Krämer 2013: 97). Krämer explains that this prompted Buddhist activists to intensify their search for a new role for Buddhism in the new Meiji state<fnref n="65" />. He asserts that the terminological choices by the Shin Buddhist priest, Shimaji Mokurai (1838-1911), one of the first Japanese not only to use the term “*shūkyō*” but to attempt to define it, offers a little-utilized insight into the history of the term and the general story of the appropriation of “religion” in modern Japan. Krämer’s central argument is that the main motive for Buddhist authors in defining the term “*shūkyō*,” the modern-day term

<footnote n="65">⁶⁵ This resulted in the Ministry of Doctrine and the Great Promulgation Campaign in 1872 (Krämer 2013).</footnote>
generally understood to mean “religion,” was to come to terms with Shinto in the modern polity. This, Krämer contends, was a purely domestic concern hardly affected by Western cultural dominance.

Continuing with Krämer’s 2013 discussion, Shimaji is best known for a short essay in which he reflected on the relationship between politics and religion that he wrote in December 1872 while sitting in a hotel in Paris during his travels through Europe as part of a study group of the Honganji faction of Jodo Shinshu. Krämer (2013: 92) states that in his essay, Shimaji was clearly politically targeting the Meiji government’s policy directed toward shrines and temples by arguing that the difference between politics (sei 政) and religion (kyo 教) should never be obscured, as the former is a human affair and only governs outward forms, whereas the latter is divine action and governs the heart. Between 1872 and 1874, Shimaji then conspicuously shifted his dichotomous thinking, Krämer (2013: 92) explains, evidenced through an essay by Shimaji in 1874 (1874a) in which he states:

> I have not penetrated this thing called Shinto completely yet, but what I can say for sure is that it is not a so-called sectarian teaching (shūkyō 宗教). If one now nonetheless attempts to make it into a sectarian teaching, the harm for Japan and the shame from outside will be enormous. In olden times, when Buddhism had not yet entered Japan, only a civic teaching (jikyō 治教<fnref n="66" />) existed in our country. There is thus no obstacle to the coexistence of a sectarian teaching and a civic teaching, but how could one possibly have two sectarian teachings at the same time?

According to Krämer’s (2013: 93-94) analysis, in this passage, “shūkyō” could be reasonably translated into English as “religion,” but the newly appearing oppositional term “jikyō” clearly did not mean “politics.” He then links this to another Buddhist author from the same year (1874): Senryu Kusonoki (1834-1896), a priest of the Otani branch of the Jodo Shinshu school of Buddhism who also positions these two terms as essentially different. In this work, Kusonoki states,

<footnote n="66">⁶⁶ Krämer (2013: 93) poses the question of if jikyō was not simply a synonym for Shinto in this writing, but then replies to his own question by saying that this does not seem likely based on other writings by Shimaji in the same year (Shimaji 1874b, 1874c) which imply it likely that jikyō was not identical with Shinto but refers to something like political indoctrination.</footnote>
Well, there are two ways of teachings (kyo 教). These are called civic teachings (jikyō) and sectarian teachings (shūkyō)... Yes, while “civic teachings” (jikyō) reward and punish outer forms and past events, they neither promote nor chastise the right and wrong of the inner heart nor that which has yet to take shape.

Krämer (2013) explains that Kusonoki further argues that while civic teachings and sectarian teachings differ in their purpose, political aims will not work without sectarian teachings because while politics (sei) can punish a wrongdoer with penalties or chastise them with laws, it does not address the evil lurking within the heart that led to the wrongful acts. This is the task of sectarian teachings, evidenced by Kusonoki going on to say in this essay: “It is sectarian teachings that make people sincere, upright, and good by chastising the evil that has yet to surface and by fostering the good in life.” Krämer asserts that Kusonoki’s text is remarkable for clearly specifying religion as an affair of the human interior. He notes, based on other parts of Kusonoki’s essay, religion is centrally defined as that which deals with death, something Krämer says is certainly a plausible definition from the vantage of Japanese Buddhism, with its focus on funeral practice<fnref n="67" /> since the early-modern period of Japan<fnref n="68" />.

Important to Krämer’s (2013) argument is his highlighting that while Kusonoki and Shimaji appear to both affirm the legitimacy of the sphere of “civic teachings,” they also position this category as inferior to religion and less central for human life. Krämer centers his attempt to understand the coinage of the term shūkyō as the word for “religion” through the term jikyō, which he positions as one of its opposites as conveyed in these essays. He does this by discussing the four stages of meaning that jikyō<fnref n="69" /> passed through chronologically and frames his analysis around looking at prominent texts of different periods that use this term and how they use it. In the first half of the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), the term was exclusively used in a Confucian context, though not in a single, unified sense. Adherents of various neo-Confucian schools of this period used it to mean the art of governing or to refer to the ideal behavior of a ruler.

<footnote n="67">⁶⁷ It is common for modern-day Japanese people to engage in Shinto rituals for issues pertaining to current, this-worldly issues and as a means of taking part in “traditional culture,” Buddhist practices for funerary rites and practices pertaining to the dead, and yet, to view largely themselves as essentially non-religious.</footnote>

<footnote n="68">⁶⁸ The early modern period of Japan is regarded as having lasted approximately from the beginning of the 17th century until the mid-18th century.</footnote>

<footnote n="69">⁶⁹ alternatively pronounced: shikyo</footnote>
Later, Krämer (2013) conveys, in the early nineteenth century, the Late Mito School<sup>70</sup> did not deny Confucian heritage, but mediated by *Kokugaku*<sup>71</sup>, deemed Confucian rituals to be insufficient. It was asserted that the worship of indigenous deities was equally important to Confucian-style rites for a well governed polity. Thereafter, *Jikyo* became part of the language used in Meiji edicts, no doubt influenced by the Late Mito School in its designating the main duty of great rulers. Although the Late Mito School conceived of the indigenous way (i.e. Shinto) and Chinese learning (i.e. Confucianism) as essentially equivalent, the 1869 and 1870 imperial edicts clearly position *Jikyo* as a way of elevating exclusively the Great Way (i.e. Shinto). These texts also stressed, for the first time, that *Jikyo* was not only a concern of the rulers, but something that also encompassed the subjects. This was expressed through *Jikyo's* dimension of indoctrination now also being stressed.

Then, Krämer (2013) explains, the Buddhist priest Shimaji Kusonoki and others used the close association between *jikyō* and *Shinto* to yet again reinterpret the word. Krämer (2013: 106) argues that their opposing *jikyō* with *shūkyō* marked a decisive step in the history of the appropriation of “religion” in Japan. To support this idea, he states that *shūkyō* clearly seems not only to have been employed but was formed in conscious opposition to the more established term: *jikyō* (治). While *jikyō* is obsolete in modern Japanese, Krämer contends that it was of paramount importance to “religious policy” during the first years of the Meiji period. To support this claim, he explains that *shūkyō* (宗教) was an “attributive character combination,” using the older umbrella term, *kyō* (教), but singling out one subsphere of it. In this, we can see that religion is part of the older

<footnote n="70"><sup>70</sup> The Mito School (Mitogaku (水戸学) arose initially in 1657 as a school of Japanese historical and Shinto studies with a fundamentally Neo-Confucian approach based on the notion that historical development follows moral laws. Its primary founder, Mitsukuni Tokugawa (1628-1700) believed that Japan had long been unified as a nation under rule of the emperor and was a perfect example of a nation according to Sinocentric thought. This school compiled historical works centered around the idea of Japan as ruled by emperors and with emphasis placed on respect for the imperial court and Shinto deities. Around the end of the eighteenth century, began to address social and political issues and thus began the era of the Late Mito School and then later became one of the main driving forces of the Meiji Restoration.</footnote>

<footnote n="71"><sup>71</sup> *Kokugaku*, literally “national study,” was an academic movement as a school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Tokugawa period. This movement is commonly attributed with having led to the eventual collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868 and the Meiji Restoration period that began thereafter.</footnote>
category of “teaching(s)” that remains when civil education, politics, and secular morals are
removed from it. From this perspective, he explains, it is clear that “religion” was crucially
appropriated in the 1870s by Shin Buddhists through their drawing on older understandings of
“kyō.”

Shūkyō, Krämer asserts, was formed not in opposition to politics but to civic teaching. He states that this distinction is important because while the distinction between the state/politics and religion was shaped by Western thinking, the differentiation between shūkyō and jikyō was a purely Japanese affair. He then goes on to say that no contemporary European observer would be able to make sense of this dichotomy or even render it in their own language. This is because had the “Shinto problem,” from the Buddhist perspective, not existed, the early 1870s Buddhist authors would not have come up with the term “shūkyō.” Krämer’s central thesis in this argument is that there is a fundamental problem with scholarship that stresses how the introduction of the Western concept of “religion” resulted in various problems because of its incompatibility with religious traditions that had already existed in Japan. Krämer (2013: 107) argues that it was, in fact, the other way around: because of the “Shinto problem” that was already present in Japan, historical actors deeply involved in everyday politics appropriated a specific kind of understanding of religion from the West, and thus a specific concept that would make it possible to situate Shinto outside the domain of “religion” understood in this way.

*Tenrikyo's inclusion in the category of “religion”*

I include this lengthy discussion on the Japanese concept of “religion” and how it came to exist as
a conceptual component of Japanese modernity because it helps contextualize the broader societal
milieu in which Tenrikyo came about as this is the historical period in which the “religion” on
which my thesis is focused was increasingly picking up momentum in its development. Notably,
this is pertinent to the question I commonly encountered from non-Tenrikyo, non-Japanese
people in my explanation of my research being focused on “the Japanese new religion of
Tenrikyo,” often accompanied by a brief explanation of Tenrikyo tenets and/or practices, of if
Tenrikyo is actually a “religion.” My generally succinct response to this question was that
Tenrikyo is a religion because its “insiders” position it as such. Sometimes I would expand that
the Japanese concept of “religion” as a separate, demarcated category came about at the same
time as the “religion” of Tenrikyo, and sometimes would note that the latter syllable (and kanji character<sup>72</sup>) of Tenrikyō (kyō) is the suffix attached to “religions” in Japan, which approximately means, “the teachings of....”

For example, Christianity is called “kirisuto-kyō<sup>73</sup>” (キリスト教) in Japanese, meaning “the teachings of Christ” and Buddhism is called “Bukkyō” (仏教), meaning “the teachings of Buddha.” Likewise, “Tenrikyō” (天理教) has the same suffix and can be literally translated as “the teachings of ‘Tenri’.” More precisely, it could be translated in two similar ways, either as “the teachings of Tenri-O-no-Mikoto” (the divine name of God the Parent which the foundress conveyed in the initial period after becoming the shrine of this deity). Or, in a more literal manner according to the meaning of the three kanji which compose this word, “the teachings of heavenly logic,” or another variation thereof reflective of the possible translations of these kanji as discussed previously.

The first appearance of the term “Tenrikyo”<sup>74</sup> to refer to this spiritual path was in a petition filed to the governor of Osaka Prefecture to form the “Tenrikyo Church” (Tenri Kyōkai 天理教会<sup>75</sup>), on April 29, 1885<sup>76</sup>. After this request was denied, a second request was made, this time to establish the “Shinto Tenrikyo Church” (Shintō Tenri Kyōkai 神道天理教会), which was also denied (The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo 1996: 199-204). Nonetheless, these early

<footnote n="72"><sup>72</sup> Kanji characters are locographic written characters originating from China in which each symbol conveys a specified meaning, but depending on the other written characters it is paired with, can be pronounced in multiple ways</footnote>

<footnote n="73"><sup>73</sup> “Kirisuto” is the Japanese rendition of “Christ.”</footnote>

<footnote n="74"><sup>74</sup> This is the first appearance of the term “Tenrikyo” mentioned in commonly circulated Tenrikyo literature.</footnote>

<footnote n="75"><sup>75</sup> “Kai” (会) is generally translated as “association” and “kyōkai” (教会: literally: “teaching, association”) generally as “church” (this term is most commonly linked with Christian sites of worship, but is also used in Tenrikyo). Thus, there is some ambiguity if this should be rightly viewed as the first time the term “Tenrikyo” was put forth in official documentation. (Kaitei tenrikyō jiten 1997: 319)</footnote>

<footnote n="76"><sup>76</sup> Prior to this, the “Meisei Fellowship” of this budding spiritual path was spreading the teachings as moral philosophy, thereby escaping persecution. On May 9, 1884, a petition was submitted to establish an organization under the name, “Tenrin-O-Sha: Institute for the Study of Practical Ethics.” A reply was received on May 17, stating, “This office has no authority to grant such a request; therefore, the petition is denied (however, we have no objection to your purpose.” Thus, an office of Tenrin-O-Sha was opened in Osaka (The Life of Oyasama: The Foundress of Tenrikyo 1996: 200).</footnote>
attempts to mitigate the persecution that this movement was being confronted with through
seeking official authorization mark the documented initial introduction of it being labeled with
the suffix “kyo,” the modern marker of “religion” in the Japanese language.

During my fieldwork, I was curious about Tenrikyo’s categorization as a religion and sometimes discussed my pondering about this with Tenrikyo followers, most but not all of whom were Japanese. One illuminative insight came about through a casual exchange with a Japanese young adult born and raised in a heavily Tenrikyo-focused context in Japan who was living at TEC as a missionary. To my informed questioning of if Tenrikyo was actually a religion and why, he told me that Tenrikyo currently took the form of being a “religion” because this classification conforms to the categorically delineated structure of the world, but that this categorization is a present-day human construct and he didn’t think it would necessarily be categorized as such forever or that it needed to be. For this religious actor who had been significantly educated on this “religion” before coming to TEC as a missionary, Tenrikyo’s position as a “religion” was a societally dictated and modern construct rather that something intrinsic to this divinely predestined spiritual path. In this, we can see that while Tenrikyo is a “religion,” this is a categorical construct closely associated with the historical circumstances of the defining of this category which occurred at the same time that this path was being initially conveyed by the foundress.

### c. The forming of a religion after the life of its foundress

#### *Oyasama's withdrawal from physical life to hasten the path*

As a result of the governmental restrictions and animosity directed toward “religious” groups and
movements outside of those sanctioned by the government during this first part of the Meiji
period, which is commonly framed in Tenrikyo discourse to have resulted in significant
governmental persecution toward it, Tenrikyo was subject to high levels of suppression that
included prohibition or severe restriction on the execution of the centrally important Service
ritual. These restrictive efforts included frequent police intervention at the site of the Residence
where the Service was performed. During the latter part of the foundress’ life, between 1875 and
1886, she was taken into police custody and detained or imprisoned on seventeen or eighteen
separate occasions<sup>77</sup>. In Tenrikyo, it is explained that these hardships did not bother her, which is
contrasted with the sorrow many of her followers felt that she should endure such treatment (The
Doctrine of Tenrikyo 1993: 38-39).

In an attempt to lessen the difficulties that this religious movement, and its leader who was
conceptualized as their original mother, encountered from governmental authorities and the
associated restrictions it faced, the foundress' son, Shuji, obtained a permit in 1876 to operate a
steam bath and inn so that the foundress could allow her followers to gather at the Residence to
receive her teachings and worship. Shuji also gained authorization from the Jifuku Temple of
Kogosan and established the movement, referred to in this instance as *Tenrin-Ō-Kosha*, as a
legitimate sub-organization of the Jifuku Temple in 1880 to mitigate the difficulties it was facing.
Two years later, both the officially authorized Tenrin-Ō-Kosha and the bath house and inn would
be abolished (Tenrikyo Doyusha Publishing Company 2014 [cited in Kato 2017a]).

Relying largely off Kato's (2017a) overview of these commonly conveyed aspects of the early
years of the Tenrikyo faith for the summary I am putting forth here that I was also exposed to
through Tenrikyo trainings, commonly circulated Tenrikyo written works, and by followers'
spoken references, despite the difficulties the foundress and the religious movement were facing,
she consistently opposed complying with the authorities in any way that could compromise her
teachings. In another attempt to mitigate tensions, her grandson, Shinnosuke, who had become
the head of the Nakayama household and would later become the first Shinbashira<sup>78</sup>, began an
initiative in 1882 to establish an independent church (*Kyōkai setsuritsu undō*), again associating
this path with the category of Shinto out of pragmaticism. During this general period, there was
internal tension between the foundress, who was adamant that her followers perform the Service
ritual, and Shinnosuke and other followers who were focused on gaining official authorization

<footnote n="77">⁷⁷ During this period, such difficulties were not exclusive to the foundress of Tenrikyo. Others were similarly taken into police custody and charged for similar reasons, such as the offense recorded on police file of “dazzling” (*genwaku*) the public with “false theories” (*mosetsu*). Because the Japanese government sponsored its own truths about divine rituals and divine prophecy, it discouraged sundry groups from claiming equal access to the supernatural and actively strove to eliminate any obstacle to its new ideology. This led to people being imprisoned, fined, or even killed for promoting forbidden beliefs or engaging in a range of banned cultish practices (Josephson 2012: 164-166).</footnote>

<footnote n="78">⁷⁸ Leader of this religious movement, a role I will expand upon later in this text.</footnote>
before doing so openly in its entirety so as to prevent additional hardship, particularly for the foundress. This generalized period of difficulties that the path and its early followers went through is a commonly referenced theme by modern followers, particularly in reference to their serving as models of perseverance, dedication to the path, and courage, with gratitude expressed toward their efforts and to that in modern times, almost anywhere in the world, followers are free to follow this faith, and more precisely, perform the Service ritual, without fear of governmental persecution.

Finally, culminating the difficulties that the path had been encountering during this period, upon the incessant urging of the foundress, the final Service during the foundress' physical life was performed in its entirety on January 26, 1887<sup>79</sup>: a date that would then be accorded particular importance in the religion. Prior to the performance of this ritual that culminated in Oyasama's "withdrawal from physical life," the foundress, who in appearance had grown physically weak, asked her followers, through the mouth of her principal disciple, Izo Iburi, if they wished her to "open the portals or keep them closed to level the ground." Izo was able to speak on her behalf because he had received the "Grant of Divine Utterance" from her and she referred to him as her "workplace," which meant that followers could approach him to inquire about God the Parent's intention and receive council through him on private matters rather than going directly to the foundress for their inquiries.

Not fully understanding the question, her followers replied that they wished her to open the portals and level the ground. Then, upon Oyasama's persistence of its paramount importance, the Service was scheduled to be performed the next day, despite her followers' apprehension, mainly as it is explained, because of their desire to spare Oyasama further hardship at her advanced age of 90 years as the public performance of this ritual act could result in her arrest once again. Once it was decided that the Service would be performed the next day, followers were urged to only perform in it if they were willing to risk arrest and imprisonment due to the heightened level of governmental prohibitions against such rituals, and the intensity of police control against

<footnote n="79"><sup>79</sup> January 26, 1887 is the commonly cited date of this important event and the date commemorated both annually and through larger commemorations every ten years. This date, in fact, was actually that of the lunar calendar that was being phased out at the time through Japan's process of modernization going on that time, which coincides with February 18, 1887 according to the Gregorian calendar, but this issue did not to appear to be of significant consequence to modern followers.</footnote>
religious and spiritual groups that did not conform with the newly implicated governmental restrictions. Often emphasized in discussions of this commonly referenced historical feature of the religion is that despite these difficulties, the foundress remained insistent that the Service must be performed, thereby adding to its attributed importance amongst modern followers as this adamance was communicated by the figure regarded as our original mother, thereby imbuing it with the sense of a parental command.

The Service ritual began the next day at about 1pm, with the foundress laying in a nearby room in a physically critical state, positioned in the faith to have been reflective of the urgency of this moment of the path's development. When the Service was concluded about an hour later, the foundress drew her last breath, which in Tenrikyo is referred to as her "withdrawal from physical life" (utsushimi o kakushita). It is explained that she did this voluntarily in order to hasten the spreading of her teachings and the practice of the Service throughout the world. Her age of 90 was 25 years prior to the 115-year lifespan she taught her followers as the natural term of life that humans would attain once the "dust" that hinders our physical, emotional, and social well-being had been adequately swept away from our hearts/ minds, which the Service is aimed at effectuating. This unexpected event was a considerable blow to her followers as they had expected her to live until the age of 115 years in accordance with her teaching. This is positioned in modern discourse, often inferentially, as a sacrifice that the foundress made to hasten the spreading of her teachings and was demonstrated in my observations to continue to imbue a strong emotionality amongst present-day followers.

Although it is explained that fellow followers considered Izo to be one of their comrades, because of the role he occupied as the principal disciple of Oyasama who had been endowed with the Grant of Divine Utterance which allowed him to convey revelations on behalf of the foundress, it was to him that her grief stricken followers consulted when they realized that the foundress' breathing had stopped and she had grown cold. Through the mouth of Izo, they received the following words:

> Because of My love for you, My children, the Parent shortened Her life by twenty-five years to step out and save the world from now. (Osashizu, February 18, 1887)
Through this statement, it was communicated that her physical passing was a purposeful choice made to hasten the spread of her teachings throughout the world. This “divine directive” was highly influential in the shaping of this religious movement by positioning the foundress’ withdrawal from physical life as a profound act of motherly love toward humanity, as her children. After this momentous event through which her followers lost their living, breathing spiritual guide, Izo became the *Honseki* (literally: “main seat”) of the faith, thereby serving as its spiritual leader through his transmission of the foundress’ divine guidance. Over time, he transmitted what is known as the *Osashizu* (“Divine Directions,”) which is a written record of the oral revelations he delivered later considered in the faith to be the last of the three Tenrikyo scriptures. The entirety of this scripture, which was conveyed by Izo during moments of divine inspiration and transcribed by others between January 04, 1887 and June 09, 1907, is currently published in seven volumes and contains around 20,000 “divine directions<fnref n="80" />.” When particular questions or problems were raised to him, he would transmit the foundress’ will, often holding a fan while receiving her communications.

In concert with Izo operating as the faith's spiritual leader, the foundress' grandson, Shinnosuke, served as its administrative leader through holding the position as the religious movement's first *Shinbashira*<fnref n="81" /> (“Main Pillar,”) as was established, according to Tenrikyo texts, by the foundress when Shinnosuke was still in his mother's womb<fnref n="82" />. This leadership role was initially associated with the faith's administrative leadership, and then later, with its spiritual leadership as well, which continues until present to be the dual function of this position. The role of Shinbashira has been continued, until now, through the foundress' direct male descendants, generally via the passing of this role from the acting Shinbashira to his eldest son. At the time of this thesis' publication, the fourth Shinbashira, Zenji Nakayama, was serving in this position. Daisuke

<footnote n="80">⁸⁰ In contrast to the other two Tenrikyo scriptures that were directly conveyed through the foundress' mouth and hand which constitute much shorter single volume works that were frequently present in my fieldwork observations, although I sometimes heard the Osashizu and particular teachings contained therein referenced, I never saw the Osashizu directly used during my two-plus years of fieldwork and heard only minimal reference to the text.</footnote>

<footnote n="81">⁸¹ Shinbashira is also sometimes spelled with the alternate spelling of “Shimbashira.”</footnote>

<footnote n="82">⁸² Shinnosuke was the son of the foundress' daughter, Haru, and Haru's husband, into whose patriline he was born and raised. He was officially adopted into the Nakayama family on September 23, 1881, at the age of fifteen, and became the family's legal successor on September 22, 1882.</footnote>
Nayakama (né Nakata) is the successor-delegate to this position. Daisuke's being next-in-line for this important position is due to his being adopted by the acting Shinbashira and his wife as their heir in 2013, when Daisuku was twenty-two years of age, due to their not having any biological children<fnref n="83" />. Daisuke is commonly described as the first son<fnref n="84" /> of Honbuin (Tenrikyo Church Headquarters Church Headquarters executive staff member), Zenusuke Nataka, and his wife, Michiko. His birth parents are the extended kin of the acting Shinbashira, providing an example of the intermingling between kinship and the organizational structure of Tenrikyo that is a common feature of its composition historically and in modern-day.

Coming back to the early years of this religious movement, somewhat after the foundress' withdrawal from physical life, another commonly referenced Divine Direction was conveyed through Izo, in this instance regarding how the foundress' physical passing and her existence thereafter is conceptualized in the faith:

> Sah, sah, I am still living here. I have not gone anywhere, not gone anywhere. You must look at the path of daily life and ponder. (Osashizu, March 17, 1890)

In this, it is taught to have been conveyed that despite the foundress no longer being alive in physical form, her spirit remains on earth. An important aspect of the Tenrikyo religion is that the foundress is regarded to still be alive in spiritual form, continuing to oversee the path of Tenrikyo and guide her followers, and extendedly all of humanity, with motherly love, striving for their salvation (Kato 2017b, Tenrikyo Doyusha Publishing Company 2014 [cited in Kato 2017a]). Although the foundress no longer dwells in a physical body, she is held to reside in the Foundress' Sanctuary, located in the central area of Tenri City adjacent to the Main Sanctuary, where specially selected female attendees serve her three meals a day, set out a fresh red kimono for her to put on every morning and draw a bath for her each evening, amongst other things,

<footnote n="83">⁸³ The adoption of adults is a centuries-old Japanese practice used as a mechanism for families to extend their family name, estate, and ancestry without reliance on a bloodline when a family does not have a capable son to function as its heir. Furthermore, adoption as a means to secure an heir, often from a relative or person otherwise closely associated with the adopting family, is also sometimes extended to younger children and babies. This practice existed among members of my research population and was demonstrated in my observations to also include the adoption of females.</footnote>

<footnote n="84">⁸⁴ Less noted in Tenrikyo discourse is that Daisuke is Zenusuke and Michiko Nakata's second child.</footnote>
tending to her as if she were still living in physical form. Further contributing to her mystique is that her photograph has never been made public by Tenrikyo Church Headquarters, which I heard speculated to likely be out of concern that her image may become an object of worship. This serves as a way of preserving the sacredness of the spiritual notion of the foundress as the Shrine of God and our benevolent original mother apart from her being tied to a physical body (Kato 2017a).

*Developing a religious tradition amidst the development of Japanese modernity and thereafter*

As noted by Kato (2017a), the diffusion of State Shinto (Kokka Shinto, 国家神道 or 國家神道) in the wider realm of Japanese society during the latter part of the 19th century associated with the Meiji Restoration resulted in its permeation into various religious groups, including Buddhist sects and “new religions” (Murakami 1982 and Victoria 2006 [cited in Kato 2017a]), the latter category of which Tenrikyo is included. To briefly introduce a reader unfamiliar with the category of “Japanese new religions,” I would like to first explain that scholars generally classify all Japanese religious organizations founded since the middle of the nineteenth century as Japanese new religions (shinshūkyō<fnref n="85" /> 新宗教)<fnref n="86" />. The temporal demarcation associated with this category is reflective of the great social turmoil and rapid modernization associated with the early part of the Meiji period (1868-1912) and connectedly, the forced signing of Perry’s treaty that led to the existence in Japan of a category called “religion” (shūkyō). Tenrikyo was one of three new religious movements, along with Kurozumikyo and Oomoto, that emerged during this transitional period leading up to the beginning of the Meiji period which are sometimes called the “Nihon Sandai Shinshūkyō” (Japan’s three large new religions). Since this time, a great number of “new religions” have come about in Japan and this umbrella term is understood as its own category both by most Japanese people and by scholars of Japanese religion.

<footnote n="85">⁸⁵ Shin 新 translates into English as “new.”</footnote>

<footnote n="86">⁸⁶ This is the most common temporal marker from which time religious movements in Japan are thought to belong to the category of “Japanese new religions.” Other proposed temporal demarcations for this category include the beginning of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century, or the period following World War II. (Inoue 1991: 10).</footnote>
In numerous ways, Tenrikyo developed into a modern religious organization at the turn of the 19th century during a time of intense pressure to conform to the accepted form of religious doctrines and practices of that period (Kato 2017a: 75-76). This historically based conformity is, from both an official and informally held emic perspective that I heard expressed during exchanges with a variety of followers, largely why the religion organizationally, structurally, ontologically, and in form shares numerous commonalities with Shinto.

Although Tenrikyo is internally understood to be a set of teachings conveyed by God the Parent through its foundress distinct from other religious traditions, it is recognized to share commonalities with numerous aspects of the broader realm of Japanese culture. This includes its religious traditions due to both pragmatic adaptations made in relation to the privileging of State Shinto and also because Japan is where the religion was founded and primarily developed, rendering the inclusion of aspects of this culture into Tenrikyo, as it is practiced and conceptualized, an unsurprisingly feature of its development. This demonstrates that in addition to this contributing feature of how Tenrikyo developed being a historically influential factor, it is also a commonly circulated one, albeit to varying degrees, that exists in the realm of the imaginary realm of this religion as it is conceptualized in modernity.

Shortly after the foundress' withdrawal from physical life, in 1888, out of pragmatic necessity, this developing religious movement gained official authorization as “Shintō Tenri Kyōkai” under direct supervision of the Shinto Main Bureau, thereby rendering it authorized and legitimated by the governmentally linked authorities. From this time until 1908, Tenrikyo operated under the umbrella of one of the thirteen State Shinto sects. This is explained in modern Tenrikyo discourse to have been due to governmental restrictions that accompanied the drastic changes which came with the beginning of Japanese modernity at that time (Meiji era). Tenrikyo only ceased to be classified as a Shinto sect by the Japanese government in 1970.

Despite the hardship that followers experienced through the physical passing of the foundress and the complications that arose from governmental restrictions, during the years following this momentous event, the religious movement grew rapidly. The most common means through which it gained new followers was through the administration of the Sazuke faith healing ritual to people suffering from physical ailments. Upon the perceived successful healing from this
ritualized act, the recipient and/or those close to them would then become themselves followers
of the faith, joining the “church” and its connected lineage of the person who administrated the
Sazuke act of healing. Once a church acquired a significant enough number of followers rooted to
it and certain other criteria were met, it was common for subservient new religious fellowships to
split off from it, forming new “churches.” By 1896, there were some 1,300 churches of this faith
established in Japan. The religious movement’s rapid growth and its emphasis on faith healing
invited societal criticism, particularly from journalists who labeled the movement as an “evil
cult” (inshi jakyō) on the grounds that it was based on superstition and magical healings over
modern medical treatment. Comparable criticism was directed toward other similar religious
movements, such as Renmonkyo, during this period (Josephson 2012: 238-240).

This tension resulted in the Japanese Home Ministry (Naimu-sho 内務省) issuing its Directive
No. 12 in 1896 which necessitated strict control and surveillance over the religious movement.
Contained in this directive were accusations directed toward Tenrikyo of improper co-mingling
of male and female parishioners and the use of banned rituals for magical healing. Tenrikyo
leaders deemed a response necessary for the organization to survive. Thus, they instituted a
number of internal reforms, including diminishing conflicts with state medical policies by
limiting the distribution of amulets for painless childbirth, restricting the practice of faith healing
to its being performed with the consent of a doctor, and reducing the presence of women and
musical instruments in their ritual practice (Josephson 2012: 239-240, Nakayama 1997 [cited in
Josephson 2012: 240])<fnref n="87" />. Also in response to this directive, the group that would later become
known as Tenrikyo began in 1899 to campaign for sectarian independence (ippa dokuritsu undo).
In order to meet the government's criteria at that time to be considered a legitimate religious
organization, the movement developed an institutionalized religious organization and a
systematized doctrine, known as the Meiji version of the Tenrikyō Kyōten (The Doctrine of

<footnote n="87">⁸⁷ Although the strategic changes Tenrikyo made in response to criticisms directed toward it seem sufficient to have prevented its dissolution, public wariness of the group was not completely eliminated, evidenced by articles that attacked Tenrikyo as superstitious which continued to be printed in a variety of sources at least through the turn of the century (Josephson 2012: 240).</footnote>
Tenrikyo<sup>88</sup>), which complied with the governmental requirement for religious doctrines to be in accordance with State Shinto (Kato 2017a).

In 1908, the group successfully received permission to become an independent religious organization as one of the thirteen sects of Sect Shinto sects (Kyōha Shintō 教派神道) (Kato 2017a; Astley 2006, Tenrikyo Overseas Mission Department 1998 [cited in Kato 2017a]). Once this religious group became categorized as an officially recognized Sect Shinto sect, by this time operating under the name “Tenrikyo,” it was free of most political and societal pressures it had dealt with previously. Thus, Tenrikyo increased its propagation efforts during this period which resulted in its rapid growth in the years leading up to 1920, particularly in the growing urban areas that had been receiving an influx of people coming from more rural areas (Kato 2017a; Lee 1994, Oya 1996, Tenrikyo Overseas Mission Department 1998 [cited in Kato 2017a]).

The religion's developments, namely its doctrinal and ritual developments, came to be hindered again in 1939 through a governmental change known as the “adjustment” (kakushin) following the National Mobilization Act (Kokka Sōdōin Hō) connected with the nation's war efforts. In compliance, Tenrikyo removed certain verses from the Mikagura-uta songs that were deemed problematic to the nationalistic agenda of that time and also withdrew the Ofudesaki and Osashizu texts from circulation (Kato 2017a; Tenrikyo Overseas Mission Department 1998 [cited in Kato 2017a]). Tenrikyo underwent a further process of institutionalization during the years preceding the end of the Pacific War amidst the Japanese imperial government's initiative to forge national unity under the religio-political system of State Shinto. This led to Tenrikyo during this time incorporating nationalistic ideas which included political ideologies of State Shinto into their religious discourse and practices (Kato 2017a).

Following the end of World War II, the second Shinbashira<sup>89</sup>, Shozen Nakayama, announced on August 15, 1945 the restoration (fukugen) of Tenrikyo's teachings back to how they had been originally conveyed by the foundress. As explained by Kato (2017a), this reformation led to a

<footnote n="88"><sup>88</sup> In a revised version, The Doctrine of Tenrikyo is currently one of the main Tenrikyo texts.</footnote>

<footnote n="89"><sup>89</sup> The Shinbashira (literally: “main pillar”) is the administrative and spiritual leader of Tenrikyo. This role was set up by Oyasama who first designated the role to her grandson. The current Shinbashira, Zenji Nakayama, is the fourth to occupy this role, all of whom have been direct male descendants of Oyasama.</footnote>
rather abstracted, de-nationalized interpretation of its prewar counterpart but with some of its
underlying structures remaining intact, thus producing an ambiguity regarding the place of
“Japan” in this religious tradition. The changes he initiated included ritual changes and also
public restoration of Tenrikyo publications that had been rescinded due to governmental
restraints. They also included the publication of several written works that were common
references during the time of my fieldwork and which were composed as part of the efforts to
restore the faith to how it had been originally conveyed by the foundress.

Continuing to rely on Kato's (2017a) work, additionally included in the second Shinbashira's
efforts during this time were increased efforts to propagate the religion overseas, which I further
discuss in the next chapter. In 1970, Tenrikyo left the Sect Shinto Union (Kyōha Shintō
rengokai). In 1976 and then again in 1986, it abolished some Shinto-related materials that had
been included in Tenrikyo's ritual and material culture. 1970 was also the year of TEC's
founding, albeit under a slightly different name. The historical details involved in TEC's
founding and its developments afterwards are also something I will expand upon slightly later.
First, however, I will next lay the groundwork for my thesis by providing a summary of the
Tenrikyo religion that is meant to function in complementarity with information on its historical
development by situating the reader with a general familiarity of the religion that was at the
center of my research context.
# Chapter Two: The faith, its expansion into Europe, and the complicated question of membership size and who is a member

## a. Summary of the Tenrikyo religion

*Tenrikyo teachings on the nature of human existence and of God*

To begin situating the reader in a general familiarity with Tenrikyo, I will provide a summary of its cosmological foundation. Tenrikyo is a highly humanistic religion focused on issues of this world and explanations of human nature and the world's functioning. According to Tenrikyo doctrine, as explained to have been conveyed orally by the foundress<sup>90</sup>, in the beginning, the world was a muddy ocean. Finding this world to be unbearably tasteless, God the Parent (a title I will expand upon shortly) decided to create humans as its<sup>91</sup> children so that we could live joyously and help one another as brothers and sisters, with God the Parent's doing this being motivated by a desire to share in the joy of its children just as human parents share in the joy of their children<sup>92</sup>. This creation is said to have taken place 900,099,999 years before the founding of Tenrikyo in 1838 (The Doctrine of Tenrikyo 1993: 20-23). Central to this creation story is that God the Parent created humans to lead the Joyous Life (yōki gurashi), which is a happy, self-less state of human life to be attained in this world rather than in an afterlife (Kato 2017a, The Doctrine of Tenrikyo 1993). The Joyous Life is explained to be one of gratitude and working toward the well-being of others; with mutual help (tasuke ai) and human harmony positioned as central pro-social dynamics promoted as the true reason for which humans were created and the ultimate ontological trajectory of our existence.

As noted by Kato (2017a), Tenrikyo's idea of this-worldly salvific truth is also characteristic of other Japanese new religions. According to Tenrikyo doctrine, the foundress, upon becoming the "shrine" of God, successively communicated several names for this deity over time, which in Tenrikyo is explained to have been done to increasingly convey the true nature of God to the

<footnote n="90"><sup>90</sup> This creation story is documented in the "kōki" referenced in the previous subsection.</footnote>

<footnote n="91"><sup>91</sup> I discuss my use of the pronoun "it" in this subsection.</footnote>

<footnote n="92"><sup>92</sup> The Tenrikyo story of human creation (Moto no Ri, or as it is translated into English: "The Truth of Creation") that is understood to have been enacted by God the Parent at the Jiba is highly significant in the faith but is not something I discuss in detail in my text.</footnote>