The Japan Society Review
Book, Stage, Movie, Arts and Events Review

Editor: Sean Curtin
Managing Editor: John Toppon...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Issue 33 Volume 6 Number 3 (June 2011)

Layout & Production Assistants: Arthur Comets/Abbie Martin

Contents(1) The Ideologies of Japanese Tea: Subjectivity, Transience & National
IdentityIn this issue we focus on Japanese religious thought,(2) The Russian Protocols of Zion in Japan: Yudayaka/Jewish Perilphilosophy and ideology, covering Japan’s two main
Propaganda and Debates in the 1920s
religions (Buddhism and Shinto) as well as Christianity and(3) A New History of Shinto
some lesser known ideologies. Sir Hugh Cortazzi examines
the ideology surrounding the tea ceremony which is (4) Great Living - In the Pure Encounter Between Master and Disciple
explored by Tim Cross in a thought-provoking new study. (5) Portraits of Chògen, The Transformation of Buddhist Art in earlyMedieval Japan
While superficially the tea ceremony seems an innocuous,(6) The Blue Sky: A Tale of Christian Descendants at the end of Tokugawa Era
sedate affair the symbolism underpinning some aspects ....................................................................................................
of it have been used in the past to promote and reinforce
nationalist ideologies and the concept of Japanese
The Ideologies of Japaneseuniqueness. Ben-Ami Shillony analyzes Jacob Kovalio’s
Tea: Subjectivity, Transience &work on Japanese anti-Semitic thought in the 1920s, a topic
National Identity
many readers will probably know little about. The Japanesebrand of anti-Semitism lacked the religious and social
by Tim Cross
dynamics of its more toxic Western counterpart, so evolved
Global Oriental, 2009, 312 pages
differently in Japan. As its title suggested the study focuses
including index, bibliography andon the forged documents known as The Protocols of thenotes, €77
Elders of Zion and their impact in Japan. For example, inISBN 978-1-905246-74-8
1924 a Buddhist nationalist leader actually ran for the Lower
House of the Diet on an anti-Semitic platform, astonishingly
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
accusing both the Jews and the Freemasons of being partof an international conspiracy. Kovalio also looks at those Tim Cross, who teaches courses related to tea, noh andJapanese academics who vigorously challenged these contemporary literature in Kyushu, is a practitioner of tea
views. We next turn our gaze to Shinto. John Breen andas well as of noh singing and dancing.
Mark Teeuwen’s excellently researched A New Historyof Shinto furnishes us with a masterfully constructed and Cross explains that his book “maps how the pleasures ofstimulating overview of Japan’s indigenous religion. The tea were useful in the invention of a particular form ofauthors take us from its misty origins and earliest recorded Japaneseness. Tea precepts such as purity, harmony andwritings in the Kojiki (古事記) and Nihon Shoki (日本書紀) to respectful appreciation of social stability will be shown topresent day issues. Andrew Webb looks at a new volume of be coercive forces that became keywords in the official
essays and commentaries on the Japanese spiritual classic, definition of wartime Japanese identity, a sacrament that
the Tannisho (歎異抄), which is the most famous text of the demanded the ultimate sacrifice.” This thought is further
Jodo Shinshu (浄土真宗), more commonly known as True
explained by Andrew Cobbing of Nottingham University
Pure Land School or ‘Shin Buddhist’ tradition. Remaining in
who has written an introduction entitled “Tea, Aesthetics
the realm of Buddhism we explore Portraits of Chōgen, The
and Power.” In this he says: “At first glance, the aesthetic
Transformation of Buddhist Art in early Medieval Japan
by John M. Rosenfield. This impressive new study explores imagery surrounding the tea ceremony seems innocent
the development of Buddhist art and meticulously charts enough: transience, ephemerality, purification and thethe changing styles of Buddhist sculpture. It is packed full beauty of cherry blossoms falling in their prime. Yet inof beautiful pictures and excellent commentaries. Fumiko the context of military conflict, embodied within thisHalloran rounds off this issue with an in-depth and highly symbolism is a potentially lethal discourse of transiencestimulating review of the insightful and best-selling with a practical application in the theatre of war.”
Japanese language novel by Yasuhisa Ebisawa about the
Cross begins with a description of “twenty-first century tea.”
lives of descendants of Japanese Christians in the 1860s.
Sean CurtinThis is followed by a chapter entitled “Inventing the nation,.................................................................................................... Japanese culture politicizes nature” in which he notes
New reviewswww.japansociety.org.uk/resources/the-japan-society-review
Archive
http://www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews_archive.html

We are grateful to our regular reviewers:
Sir Hugh Cortazzi
Simon Cotterill
William Farr
Fumiko Halloran
Mikihiro Maeda

Susan Meehan
Takahiro Miyao
Ian NishBen-Ami Shillony
Tomohiko Taniguchithat for tea masters “all flowers are not created equal.” Teamasters do not care for flowers that remain long in bloom.
The next chapter is headed “Lethal Transience” in which
Cross argues among other things that “This other world of
tea allowed Japaneseness to be defined in a manner thatblurred the boundaries between the worlds of nature andsociety.” He notes that the famous cherry blossom at Yoshino
not only announce the arrival of spring but “link imperial
power, martial struggles for power and natural divinity.”

The next chapter entitled “Japanese Harmony as
Nationalism: Grand Master Tea for War and Peace” is basedon the premise that “tea operates as cultural nationalism
inside the discourse of state nationalism.” Chapter 5, which
is headed “Wartime tea literature, Rikyū, Hideyoshi and Zen,”recounts the relationship between Rikyū and Hideyoshi
and Sen no Rikyū’s ritual suicide which was regarded as“the embodiment of the calm decisiveness of Zen.” Cross
describes war-time Japanese propaganda as an “earlytwentieth century appeal to the role of Japan as an agentof global harmony at the point of a sword.” On page 115
he writes: “The ideological linkage between Zen and tea
as patriotic forces commences with the 1906 rendition by
Okakura [Kakushin] of Rikyū smiling as he took his own life
in 1591. The 1915 invention of war Zen is compoundedby the 1943 appearance of combat zazen [kamikaze pilots
were sent to do zazen [坐禅] before their final suicidal
mission]. The image of Rikyū facing his own death was arole model for members of the Imperial Forces who wereconscripted into Soldier Zen.”
Chapter 6 on the “Grand Master: Iemoto” and chapter 7
headed “The Teachings as Power Questioning Legitimate
Authority” are critical of a system which is open tocorruption and abuse, but which reflects the Japanesepenchant for hierarchy and respect for age and position.
Chapter 6 also discusses the way in which tea is dealt
with in Yasunari Kawabata’s [川端 康成] novel Thousand
Cranes [千羽鶴]. The next two chapters deal with films
and take up some controversies in which Cross has
been involved. The final chapter on “National Identity
and Tea Subjectivity” takes as its theme the following
opaque question: “Could it be that a post-modern
subject for nation may be emerging for whom nation as
independent nation state matters somewhat less thannation as culture?”
The value of this book lies in its exposure of the waythat the tea ceremony and its concomitant philosophy
has been exploited to boost Japanese nationalism andthe concept of Japanese uniqueness. Unfortunately thebook is written in a dense style with many convoluted
sentences. This means that some long sentences need
to be read at least twice before their meaning becomesapparent.

The Russian Protocols of Zion
in Japan: Yudayaka/Jewish
Peril Propaganda and Debatesin the 1920s
by Jacob Kovalio
Peter Lang Pub Inc, 2009, 114 pages,
ISBN 978 1 4331 0609 5 £39.00
Review by Ben-Ami Shillony
The 1920s were a crucial period in modern Japanese history,
when new and revolutionary western ideologies, like2

communism and fascism, entered Japan and found adherents
there. Anti-Semitism was one of those western ideologies toarrive at that time. It offered a simplistic explanation of the
perplexing turmoil of the world. It appealed to conservatives
alarmed about communist subversion and to those attracted
by conspiracy theories. Few publications have dealt with thestrange phenomenon of Japanese anti-Semitism (see note 1),
and this thin volume is an important addition to that literature.
Japanese anti-Semitism lacked the religious and social roots
which fed the animosity toward Jews in the west. It remained
an intellectual fad that did not produce the physical attacks andother measures against Jews, which characterized westernanti-Semitism. Moreover, Japanese anti-Semitic writers
sometimes expressed admiration for the rich and clever Jews,
who allegedly control the world, and advocated befriending
them and learning from them.
In search of scapegoats
The Russian Protocols of Zion in Japan: Yudayaka/Jewish
Peril Propaganda and Debates in the 1920s focuses on theappearance and acceptance of The Protocols of the Eldersof Zion in Japan in the decade broadly known as Taishō
Democracy. As Kovalio points out, the Protocols were a forgeddocument, concocted by the Paris branch of the tzarist secretpolice (Okhrana) at the beginning of the 20th century. The
aim of the forgery was to deflect popular Russian discontent
from the government toward the Jewish conspiracy tosubvert the state. The document carried the minutes of analleged conference of world Jewish leaders, in which they
worked out their grand strategy to control the world. The
purported author of the document was Sergey Nilus, aRussian occultist and a former anarchist who reverted to
Russian-Orthodox Christianity. The Protocols were translated
into many languages and gained considerable notoriety inmany countries in the years following the First World War andthe Russian Revolution. They provided an easy explanation
to millions of bewildered people, looking for scapegoats to
exorcize their miseries. The enigmatic, rich and influential
Jews presented a perfect scapegoat. Even in the US, which
had not been ravaged by war and revolution, the Protocols
gained a wide audience. As Kovalio shows, prominent
American figures, such as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison,
were outspoken anti-Semites, promoting the Protocols andblaming the Jews for the evils of the world.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were introduced into
Japan by Japanese army officers who had participated in
the Siberian Expedition of 1918-1922, helping the fiercely
anti-Semitic White Russian troops who blamed the Jews for
the Russian Revolution. As Kovalio shows, in the Japan of the
1920s, as in the West at that time, anti-Semitic ideas werevoiced by respectable people and appeared in reputablejournals. In 1921, the liberal monthly magazine Chūō Kōron[中央公論] welcomed the return of Crown Prince Hirohito
from his European tour with the words: “We are elated towelcome back His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince,
confident now that our serious fears that He might be hurt
by violent Koreans or Jewish plots did not materialize” (page2). The first publicised Japanese edition of the Protocols
Issue 33 Volume 6 Number 3 (June 2011)

appeared in the March 1920 issue of the magazine Shinrei,
the organ of the religious sect Ōmoto-kyō. In 1924, theBuddhist nationalist leader Chigaku Tanaka [田中智學] ran
for the Diet’s Lower House on an anti-Semitic platform. In theanti-Semitic literature, based on the Protocols, the Jews andthe Freemasons were accused together of being part of thesame international conspiracy.
Forgery and fantasy
Yet, as Kovalio shows, not all Japanese intellectuals subscribedto anti-Semitic ideas, and there were those who criticized theJewish-conspiracy theory. Professor Sakuzō Yoshino [吉野作造] of Tokyo Imperial University, the leading liberal thinkerof the 1920s, attacked the anti-Semitic writings of this time.
In essays in Chūō Kōron in 1921, he dismissed the Protocols
as an absurd fabrication unworthy of Japanese intellectuals.
Himself a Christian and a Freemason, Yoshino ridiculed theidentification of the Jews with the Freemasons, showing that
until the late 19th century Jews were not admitted to the
Masonic Order. Another liberal Christian scholar from Tokyo
Imperial University, Tadao Yanaihara [矢内原 忠雄], rejected
the childish accusations of the Jews, pointing out that only
a few of the world’s capitalists were Jews and only a few of
the Jews were capitalists. Yanaihara dismissed the accusationthat Zionism was a Jewish tool to control the world, andexpressed support for the Jewish return to Palestine. Other
critics of anti-Semitism included Kanzō Uchimura [内村 鑑三]
and Nyozekan Hasegawa [長谷川 如是閑]. Kovalio translatesa roundtable symposium on “The Jewish Question,” whichappeared in Heibon magazine in 1929. In that symposium,
the participants praised the Jewish financier Jacob Schiff who
had extended help to Japan during the Russo-Japanese War.
The conclusion of the symposium was that the Protocols
were a forgery, Zionism did not aim to subvert the world, andthe Jewish conspiracy was sheer fantasy (pages 50-57).
In the last chapter of his book, Kovalio discusses current
Japanese anti-Semitic literature. He claims that in postwar
Japan, the Jewish-conspiracy theory has been replaced by an
Israeli-conspiracy theory. He regards Professor Yūzō Itagaki[板垣雄三] of Tokyo University as the leading exponent of
this leftist-Islamic form of anti-Semitism. He laments thatin today’s Japan no brave intellectuals, like Sakuzō Yoshino
and Tadao Yanaihara, have come out to challenge the Israelconspiracy theories. However, Kovalio seems to overstate
his case, when he claims that the demonised image of theJews in the last 150 years was created by the “conspiratorial
minds” of Sergey Nilus, Pope Pius IX, Karl Marx, Henry Ford,
Adolf Hitler, Nobutaka Shiōden [四王天 延孝], Yūzō Itagaki,
Anis Mansour, Mahathir bin-Mohamad, Edward Said, Noam
Chomsky, Masami Uno [宇野 正美] and others (p. 68).
Lumping together all these names into one anti-Semitic block
may sound as fantastic as the accusations of The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion.
Eccentricities
Kovalio uses both the terms “Judeophobia” and “antiSemitism,” but often prefers the lesser known Japanesephrase “Yudaya-ka” (Jewish peril). As a result, anti-Semitic
writers become “Yudaya-ka ronja” (Jewish peril advocates).
Issue 33 Volume 6 Number 3 (June 2011)

He also uses the self-made acronym CSA (Conspiracy
and Scapegoating Anti-Semitism). Such unfamiliar terms
make the reading less fluent. The transliteration of someJapanese words does not follow the standard system. Thus,
the suffix “shita” is spelled throughout the book as “shta.”
One also wonders why Karl Marx is constantly referred toas Karl Heinrich Marx, which is factually correct but not thestandard form. These small eccentricities do not detractfrom the value of the book as an important source for the
study of prewar Japanese anti-Semitism
Note
See for instance: Goodman, David G. and Masanori Miyazawa.
1995. Jews in the Japanese Mind: The History and Uses of a
Cultural Stereotype. New York: The Free Press; Rotem Kowner,
2006. “On Symbolic Antisemitism: Motives for the Success of
the Protocols in Japan and its Consequences,” Posen Papers
in Contemporary Antisemitism, No. 3. Jerusalem: The Vidal
Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism,
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and my own, Shillony,
Ben-Ami. 1991. The Jews and the Japanese: The Successful
Outsiders. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle.
A different and shorter form of the above review first appearedin The Newsletter of the International Institute for Asian Studies(Spring 2010) and is reproduced here with the permission of theauthor.

A New History of Shinto
by John Breen andMark Teeuwen
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 264
pages including index andlist of references, £19.99,
ISBN 978-1-4051-5516-8(soft back)
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
The first two chapters of A New History of Shinto provide
a perspective of the development of Shinto in Japan. The
book then has a full account of the Hie shrine near Kyoto.
This is followed by a description of the myth of the SunGoddess and the Rock-cave and by a discussion of The
Daijōsai [大嘗祭]: A “Shinto” Rite of Imperial Accession. The
final chapter before some concluding remarks deals with
“Issues in Contemporary Shinto.”
The authors start from the premise that Shinto is a constructwhich came into being at some time in the past. This meansthat there must have been a ‘pre-Shinto’ time. In presentday Japan they note that Shinto is the religion of shrines
which are distinguished from Buddhist temples by theircharacteristic architecture but “Seen through the eyes of
the average patron of shrines, Shinto remains a very vague
concept (page 1).” Shinto shrines, they point out, perform
three categories of rituals. One is personal prayers forindividuals or families. Another category “is of an imperial
nature. These rituals which are standardized across the land”
3include the niinamesai [新嘗祭], a form of harvest festival. A
third category is that of shrine festivals.
In Pre-Meiji Japan Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines had
not been clearly divided. This changed under the postRestoration regime but it was then argued by some that
Shinto was not a ‘religion.’ Participation in Shinto rituals“could not be anything more than a simple expressionof respect for the Great Men who had built the nation.”
The Meiji period, however, “also saw the emergence of anumber of ‘Shinto sects’ that were officially recognized andadministered as religious groups (page 17).” In post-war
Japan three different roles for Shinto have been postulated.
One of these “stressed Shinto’s role in uniting the Japanesepeople under the spiritual guidance of the emperor.
Another emphasised ‘the spiritual value of local traditions ofworshipping local kami.’ A third called for Shinto to develop‘from an ethnic religion into a universal one’ (Page 6).”The second chapter covers “Kami Shrines, Myths, and Rituals
in Premodern Times.” The authors argue (page 45) that“the category of kami as opposed to other higher beings,
ranging from buddhas to devas, star deities, and powerful
animals such as foxes and snakes, was ... fluid.” They notethat the word Shinto first used in the Nihon shoki [日本書紀], (circa 720) had Buddhist connotations. The term wasused by Kanetomo Yoshida [吉田兼倶] in the late fifteenth
century who conceived of kami, shrines, and their priests
as “constituting a new religion called one-and-only Shinto,
distinct from, superior to, and the very source of Buddhism,
Confucianism, and Daoism, even as it accommodated thesecreeds (pages 51/52).” The religious nature of Shinto shrines
was underlined by the large number of pilgrims attracted toshines especially those at Ise.
Visitors to Japan often ask about the origin of torii at theentrance to Japanese shrines. The authors note that in one
document of 1513 all torii represent “the entrance to ‘thepalace of the rock-cave’” in the Sun-Goddess myth (page147). The chapter on the Daijōsai describes the ritual as “anexercise in power,” and notes that “its function is to produce
and reproduce a particular emperor-centred order (page175).” Some influential Japanese see “the purpose of the
daijōsai” as “none other than to unify the state, the imperial
court and the people (page 198).”
John Breen has done much research on the Yasukuni shrine[see our review of Breen’s Yasukuni, the War Dead andthe Struggle for Japan’s Past in Issue 26] and the authors
conclude that Yasukuni rites have come to “consign muchof war’s reality to oblivion and leave no scope to reflect on
its brutality and cruelty (page 217).”
In their conclusion the authors stress that Shinto “appears
not as the unchanging core of Japan’s national essence but
rather as the unpredictable outcome of an erratic history(page 228).”
In a brief review it is not possible to do more than highlighta few points such as those which I have cited above but
I hope that I have shown that this book contains many
interesting and thought provoking insights in its account4of Shinto. I think, however, that a better title would havebeen “Some new perspectives on Shinto.” It is not acomprehensive history. Nor does it attempt to describe thevarious modern Shinto sects and their teachings. It is not
the ideal introduction to Shinto for anyone without priorknowledge of Japanese religion and history. The authors
rightly do not describe kami as gods but it might have been
helpful if a definition of kami had been attempted.

Great Living – In the Pure
Encounter Between Masterand Disciple
by Kemmyo Taira Sato
American Buddhist Study Center
Press, 2010, 206 pages, £25.95
ISBN-13: 978-0976459477
Review by Andrew Webb
Great Living – In the Pure Encounter Between Masterand Disciple – is a volume of essays and commentaries
on the Japanese spiritual classic, the Tannisho (歎異抄), in a new English language translation for awestern audience. The Tannisho is the most famous
text of the Japanese Jodo Shinshu [浄土真宗] – True
Pure Land School or ‘Shin Buddhist’ tradition and assuch has seen several translations into English overthe last 80 years. With Rev. Professor Sato’s translationand commentary, however, we have a meticulously
detailed examination and profound appreciation of
the text from the perspective of the living encounter
between teacher and student that lies at the heart of
the Shin Buddhist faith.
The Tannisho (A Record of Lament over Divergence)
itself is a collection of the sayings of Shinran [親鸞]Shonin (1173-1262) compiled by his close disciple
Yuien. It is a brief work consisting of eighteen chaptersdivided into two parts, each with a short preface,followed by a postscript together with an historicalendnote. Rev. Sato remarks at the beginning of thework, “The Tannisho is neither an academic work nor
a mere historical document; it is, rather, the record ofa living encounter that took place between masterand disciple in medieval Japan”. ‘Encounter’ is a wordthat occupies a very special place in this work and has
a completely different emphasis from how we may
ordinarily understand the term. As Rev. Sato states atthe beginning of his commentary,“Encounter can serve as the very source of spiritual lightin our lives, provided it is realised purely….We arrive at
this newfound situation through the spiritual light ofself-awakening that breaks down the barriers that wehave thrown up between ourselves and others. In theTannisho we can see this taking place in the genuine
encounter between Shinran Shonin and Yuien.”
Issue 33 Volume 6 Number 3 (June 2011)

The ‘living encounters’ reflected in the work areseveral. There are the two formative encounters
between Shinran Shonin and his own master Honen[法然] Shonin and between Shinran Shonin and his
disciples including of course Yuien. Next from theinner dimension of Shinran Shonin’s own religious
experiences there are a further two encounters,
namely Shinran Shonin’s encounter with the natureof his true self as an ordinary being burdened with“bad karma” and his encounter with Amida Buddha[阿弥陀仏] who saves all beings without any form of
discrimination. These are the two inseparable aspectsof the Shin Buddhist faith-experience which Shinran
Shonin received through his own encounter with hismaster Honen Shonin and which Yuien wished totransmit through the Tannisho to later generations.
It is through the lens of spiritual encounter that
Rev. Sato focuses on the Tannisho not as an ancientacademic work but as a vivid and dynamic recordof a living spirituality concerned with the realities ofeveryday life. The Tannisho was originally compiled
to make people aware of the many challenges that
confront Shin Buddhist followers and to show them theway to go beyond these problems. In his commentary
Rev. Sato brings out the relevance of these problems
to the modern audience and also shows us the way to
go beyond them through faith in Amida Buddha.
Rev. Sato first arrived in London from his parent temple,
Shogyoji [正行寺], in 1993 and since then, with his wife
Hiroko, has tirelessly been involved in the creation of a
Shin Buddhist centre called Three Wheels. A major partof his activities has been in translating and commenting
on core Shin Buddhist texts like the Tannisho. Originallythe essays which make up this work were given as talks
at the London Buddhist Society. However, these weremuch more than just talks given to an audience, they
were also dialogues with those who came to listen andto ask questions of him. It is this open spirit of dialogue
which shines through the entire book and makes itsuch a joy and treasure to read.

Portraits of Chōgen,The Transformation of
Buddhist Art in earlyMedieval Japan
by John M. Rosenfield,
Brill, Leiden, 2010296 pages incl appendices,notes, bibliography andindex, copious illustrations
in colour and black & whiteISBN 9789004168640 €93
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
Issue 33 Volume 6 Number 3 (June 2011)

The title of this book gives only a hint of the scope of
this masterly study. It focuses on the life and work of
the Buddhist priest Chōgen 重源 (1121-1206). It covers
the development of portraiture in East Asia and therevival of realism. It then describes the Great Buddhaof Tōdaiji 東大寺 and the efforts to rebuild the temple
after its destruction in 1180 in the war between the
Minamoto 源 and the Taira 平 clans. The developmentof Buddhist sculpture in Nara and Kyoto is described
together with an analysis of the methods used. This isaccompanied by an account of some of the leading
sculptors. A chapter on icons, rituals and paths tosalvation and another on relics and ritual implements
provide valuable insight into the various strands of
Buddhism in the twelfth century. These are followed
by a chapter on Buddhist paintings and illuminatedsutras. The final chapter consists of an annotatedtranslation of Chōgen’s memoir. The appendicesinclude notes on Buddhist doctrine and ritual as well as
short biographies of some of the leading figures withwhom Chōgen was associated as well as a valuable listof characters.
Chōgen was born in the Heian capital, now Kyoto into
the Ki family, made famous by the poet Ki no Tsurayuki
紀貫之 whose preface to the Kokinshū 古今集 is, toquote Professor Rosenfield, “a foundation documentof Japanese literary aesthetics.” He was thus “born into
the middle levels of an elite court society.” At the ageof 13 he entered religious life at Daigoji 醍醐寺 ” a vastmonastery in the verdant hills south-east of the Heian
capital” where he began to study esoteric Buddhism of
the Shingon 眞言 school and was taught to meditate
on mandalas and perform various Buddhist rituals. By
the age of thirty-five Chōgen had gained the statusof Master Priest. Daigoji was a major centre of ritual
mountain climbing and asceticism and Chōgen seems
to have been an enthusiastic participant in various
austerities especially at the Shingon complex of temples
on Mt Koya 高野山. He became an itinerant monk (hijiri聖). His reputation as a holy man came to the attentionof the court and following the destruction in 1180 of
the great Nara temples of Tōdaiji 東大寺 and Kōfukuji 興
福寺, he was appointed as “Solicitor for the rebuildingof the Great Buddha” at Nara and this became thefocus of the rest of his life. He was also instrumental
in the building of some seven special sanctuaries or
bessho 別所 for hijiri in which a number of importantworks of art came to be located. For the rebuildingof Tōdaiji he travelled to Suō 周防 province in western
Honshu (now Yamaguchi 山口 prefecture) to findsuitable cypress trees for the temple. These had to be
cut down, floated to the sea and transported to the
Yodo River 淀 川 for delivery to Nara. One hundred andfifty timbers were eventually brought to Nara. This wasa huge task which took two years and involved one to
two thousand workmen. Chōgen in later life became
associated with the ‘Pure Land’ school of Buddhism
which emphasized the role of Amitabha (Amida 阿5弥陀) Buddha. He lived to see the completion of the
Daibutsuden precinct at Tōdaiji in 1203.
Chōgen was an ascetic with a determined character. Thisis apparent from the striking facial features reflected in
the portrait on the cover of this book which includes
a number of fine illustrations of statues of him. The
following two photographs from different angles are of
the same statue, made in 1206 shortly before he died.
The right hand image is a close up view of his face.

Hachiman Bosatsu
八幡菩薩 at Tōdaiji

Professor Rosenfield demonstrates that the production of
Buddhist images and portrait sculpture were similar arts. He
takes as his first example and as a forerunner of the Great
Buddha of Nara that of the seated Buddha in bronze of
about 742 in the little visited temple of Kanimanji
蟹満寺 in Kyoto.

Professor Rosenfield in his account of the developmentof portrait sculpture in Japan shows that while portraitsof Chōgen were particularly fine examples of Japaneserealism there was a long tradition of depicting prominent
persons especially holy men. The oldest extant image
in East Asia is that of the Chinese monk Ganjin 鑑真
in Tōshōdaiji 唐招提寺 in Nara. Rosenfield describes
this statue as “rather artless and straightforward” incomparison with the much later portraits of Chōgen:Rosenfield describes this image, despite the ravages oftime, as retaining “powerful aesthetic impact.”
It is not possible in a short review to give an outlineof the development of Japanese Buddhist sculpture or
to do justice to Professor Rosenfield’s scholarship, but

the following, which are some of the examples which
Professor Rosenfield illustrates, will, I hope, tempt
readers to get hold of a copy of the book.
Amida by Jōchō 定朝 of about 1053 in the Byōdōin 平
等院 at Uji 宇治.
The early eleventh century statue of Rōben 浪辯, one of
Chōgen’s venerable predecessors at Tōdaiji, is anotherimpressive portrait. The head and trunk were carved
from a solid block of hinoki 檜 cypress. As it was kept
hidden for a long time it is particularly well preserved.
Another striking portrait sculpture of 1201 which Professor
Rosenfield illustrates is that of Hachiman Bosatsu 八幡菩
薩 at Tōdaiji, a reminder of the way in which Shinto deities(in this case of the god of war) were absorbed into the
Buddhist pantheon.
6

Amida statues from the mid 12th century in Jōruriji 浄瑠璃寺 a temple in southern Kyoto near to Nara.

Issue 33 Volume 6 Number 3 (June 2011)

The series of statues of Kannon 観音 from the workshopof Tankei 湛慶 dating from the 12th-13th centuries in
the Sanjūsangendō 三十三間堂 in Kyoto.

The Blue Sky: A Tale ofChristian Descendants at theend of Tokugawa Era [青い空幕末キリシタン類族伝]
by Yasuhisa Ebisawa[海老沢 泰久]
Bunshun Bunko [文藝春秋], 2009,
Volume One, 431 pages, 743 yen,
ISBN-10: 4167414120 & Volume
Two, 478 pages, 790 yen
ISBN-10: 4167414139
Review by Fumiko Halloran

The Amida from the Amida triad by Kaikei 快慶 of 1195
at Jōdōji 浄土寺 in Hyōgo 兵庫 prefecture.

The Meiji Restoration in 19th century Japan not only
overthrew the Shogun’s rule but rewrote the nation’s
religious map. That propelled the emperor into a deity
whose absolute authority was crafted by the foundersof the new regime for political purposes. Prior to thattransformation, no traditional belief held that the emperors
were gods; that was so even among scholars who believedin the Way of the Gods. This is the basic theme in Yasuhisa
Ebisawa’s best-selling novel that got rave reviews in 2004
and is now available in paperback.
Even during World War II, when Japanese military leadersrelentlessly sought to indoctrinate the public with theemperor’s status as a deity to legitimize their actions, many
Japanese sensed the artificiality of that assertion. The
imperial system and the Shinto shrines were inseparable
then and the emperor remains the chief Shinto priest inpresent day Japan.

And as an example of power we might cite thefearsome west guardian of 1203 in the gateway to
Tōdaiji by Unkei 運慶.

Students of Japanese art will want to study thismagnificently illustrated and fascinating book.

Issue 33 Volume 6 Number 3 (June 2011)

Ebisawa’s tale revolves around a sixteen year old boy,
Toemon, whose ancestors were Christians in Dewa, thepresent day Akita Prefecture in north-eastern Japan. This
novel is set in 1863, ten years after the American black ships
appeared near Edo to divide the nation into a bitter conflict
between those who pushed for opening Japan and those
who rejected it.
Toemon’s ancestors were Christians who went into hiding
after the Shimabara Rebellion in 1637. That revolt was
triggered by anger of peasants toward the greedy clan lordin Shimabara domain in Kyushu because he had imposed
heavy taxes on people already in extreme poverty. Sincealmost all of the 30,000 rebels who fought the Shogun’sarmy of more than 120,000 soldiers were Christians, theShogunate soon banned Christianity and closed thecountry to foreigners except for the limited trade of the
Dutch and Chinese in Nagasaki. Persecution of the hidden
Christians when they were exposed was thorough andruthless. Yet even after the ban, for thirty years, more than
one hundred European missionaries secretly entered Japanto baptize, preach, and say Mass for the surviving Christians.
These missionaries were all caught, tortured, executed, or
imprisoned for life.
That persecution did not stop with those who werediscovered. A law was imposed on the surviving
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descendants of the Christians to discriminate against themin every way, from being prohibited from leaving their clans
to being required to report any change in their lives suchas employment, marriage, birth of children, and death. They
were required to belong to Buddhist temples to prove they
had recanted the Christian faith of their ancestors. They were
not allowed to be educated at community schools calledjuku. Even in death, families had to get permission to bury
the deceased. The surviving descendants of Christians werecalled “Ruizoku” [類族] or groups associated with Christians,
with a separate koseki or family registry.
In the novel, Toemon no longer practices the Christian faith,
after five generations, but is keenly aware of injustice and isangry with exploitation of the Ruizoku by Buddhist temples.
He kills a man who raped a sister of his best friend and flees
from his village without identity papers. With the help of anunderground network that helps men and women without
permits to move through check points, he manages to arrivein Edo and finds a job as a servant to a sword master.
He changes his name to Ugenta to hide from the authorities.
In the rapidly changing political situation with the Shogunate
at the brink of collapse, Ugenta is thrown into chaotic andbloody struggles between supporters of the imperial court
and the Shogunate. He kills another man who had murdered
his close friend, a Shinto priest who openly criticized theBuddhist establishment. Ugenta cannot shake off his senseof guilt even though he justifies his action. He asks forforgiveness to a Higher Being whom he cannot name, yetfeels His presence.
Ugenta comes to distrust promises of those who werepressing to overthrow the Shogunate that they will liberate
the Christian Ruizoku. The Meiji government turns out tobe just as oppressive as the old regime, accelerating thepersecution of Christians who had come out believing thatthe new regime would protect them. Not only that, theMeiji Government persecuted the Buddhist establishmentthat was the backbone of the Shogunate. By ordering
the registration of every person at a Buddhist temple, theShogunate controlled the census, taxation, and labour for
public works.
As a state religion, the Buddhist establishment became
powerful and corrupt. The Buddhist monks thought nothingof breaking the code of conduct that prohibited drinking,fornication, and eating meat. They became wealthy byowning vast estates. The public’s anger against the Buddhist
establishment reached a boiling point and it welcomedwith vengeance the new government’s persecution of
Buddhism. Crowds ran amok destroying temples, looting
statues of Buddha, burning texts, and beating up monks.
In addition, the Meiji government targeted the powerful
influence of Confucian teachings that required people
to follow the moral code of absolute respect for elders by
the young, loyalty to masters by their vassals, obedience of
wives to their husbands, and of children to parents. That wasa convenient tool for the Shogunate to control the nation.
Confucian scholars became official advisors to the Shogun
and the elite samurai class.

Norinaga Motoori [本居 宣長] and Atsutane Hirata [平田 篤胤], asserted that Buddhism was a foreign religion imposedon Japanese since the 6th century by the ruling class toamass power. They also attacked Confucian teachings as
unrealistic and hypocritical in light of Chinese history thatexperienced constant warfare, making the winners to be as
virtuous rulers when in fact they were bandits of low origin
who were skilful in warfare and power struggles.
Both Motoori and Hirata returned to Shinto as the core of true
Japanese soul. While Motoori’s life was devoted to criticism
of Buddhism and Confucianism, Hirata was dedicated toraising Shinto to a level that would be powerful enoughto eradicate Buddhism and Confucianism. Hirata searched
for a concept of peace for the soul after the death of theflesh. In ancient times, Japanese believed in the permanent
existence of the soul. They also believed that this world was“exposed” and one in which souls after death resided wasa “ghostly twilight” one. Both Motoori and Hirata read theChinese text of a book written by the Jesuit priest, Matteo
Ricci, whose Chinese name is Li Madou [利瑪竇]. That bookon Christian teachings, “Tien-chu-she-i,” [天主隆盛] or “The
True Doctrine of God,” was published in Beijing in 1630 and
Hirata found the Christian idea of the permanent existenceof soul and the importance of life beyond death resonantwith his own interpretation of Shinto teaching.
Both scholars promoted the emperor as the embodiment of
the Shinto spirit but the Meiji government went further bymaking the emperor the head of state, a political presence,
rather than the symbol of history,tradition, culture, and spirit.
The novel argues that the founders of the Meiji government
were lower class samurai who, in the eyes of the imperial
court and the Shogun, had no legitimacy. The founders had
to come up fast with evidence of legitimacy and authority.
Their solution was to make the emperor the supremeleader of both spiritual and political spheres of Japanese life,
claiming that this was the form of rule in ancient Japan.
The era of the emperor’s infallibility whose conflicting
identity dragged modern Japan onto a troubled path was
implied in remarks by Kaishu Katsu, a hero in this novel.
Ugenta was sent by opponents of the opening of Japan ona mission to assassinate Katsu. But Ugenta found he could
not do it and was persuaded by Katsu to become his loyal
agent.Katsu, a hatamoto of the Shogun’s security guard,
had an enlightened view of the world. His meeting withTakamori Saigo [西郷 隆盛], the commander of the imperial
army advancing to Edo to overthrow the Shogun, resulted
in a bloodless transfer of power from the Shogun to theemperor. Katsu agreed to the Shogun family’s moving outof the Edo Castle that prevented civil war in Edo.
This novel is yet another example of how spiritual faith canbe transformed into an organized religion that goes alongwith state power to create discrimination and oppression of
those who have dissenting beliefs. Yet the author Ebisawa
finds hope in a faith in a Supreme Being, from whom Ugenta
asks forgiveness for his sin of killing two human beings.
Ebisawa succeeds in weaving the personal pursuit of a soulfinding peace with a historical drama of modern Japan.

Scholars of national studies, or kokugakusha [国学者], such as
8Issue 33 Volume 6 Number 3 (June 2011)