The Fifty-Year Journey of the Japanese Association for Religious StudiesGOTŌ Kōichirō 後藤光一郎 and TAMARU Noriyoshi 田丸徳善
1. Introduction
This year (1980), the Japanese Association for Religious Studies (Nihon Shūkyō Gakkai 日本宗教学会; below,
JARS) marked the fiftieth anniversary of its founding. Fifty years is not particularly long when seen from the field’s
history. However, having traversed a half-century as an academic organization in our country carries considerable
weight—especially in the field of humanities. Even when seen internationally, this association’s fifty-year history isquite significant. It does not bear repeating that, like other academic fields, our country’s modern field of religious
studies came into existence due to the impact of the West. Yet JARS possesses a track record that, at the very least,
can stand alongside that of its ancestral home. For example, in Great Britain, the country of religious studies’“founding father” Max Müller, an organization of scholars of religion was created only very recently. In the UnitedStates, the American Society for the Study of Religion was founded in 1959. 1 Also, as described below, theInternational Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), with which JARS is affiliated, came into existence in
1950.
It is not to flaunt JARS’s long history that we have comparatively referred to several examples from overseas.
Certainly, as Ishizu Teruji 石津照璽 once pointed out, religious studies in Japan is a “time-honored field” in theworldwide academic study of religion. 2 However, that is not what is significant. Rather, it is important that anorganization was created of people studying religion and was active countrywide from this early period. Of course,
usually actual research is done by individual researchers. Shifting our perspective, though, we can see that suchseparate research projects find their place in the context of a shared setting that we could call a “research community.”
In such a setting, research information is exchanged and transmitted, research objectives are adopted, and research is
given direction. In this case, not simply exchange but also debate and discussion can serve as effective methods(although the latter two have perhaps been found less frequently in our country). These are most directly embodiedin conferences and academic publishing activities, and, since its inception, JARS has made them the core of its work.
Generally speaking, the history of an academic field should primarily be understood in relation to, in short,internal factors. These include the acquisition of sources, the development of techniques for dealing with such sources,
the establishment of research questions, and changes in perspectives. However, in reality, a field’s history cannot be
told if we ignore relations with neighboring fields and, furthermore, the (in)direct influences of surrounding societal
and historical situations. Our country’s field of religious studies is no exception. This is particularly true with regard
to the situation around the time of World War II. Naturally, it imposed severe material and mental constraints on theassociation’s activities. In light of this, as well as the fact that after the war, overseas relations recommenced and led

1 This founding talk by the first president E. Goodenough is “Religionswissenschaft,” Numen 6 (1959): 77–95. While here we cannot

present comprehensive data, even in Northern Europe, which has a long tradition of religion research, the field was only institutionalized
after entering the 1960s. Regarding Finland, see L. Honko, “The Finnish Society for the Study of Comparative Religion in 1963–1973,”
Temenos 9 (1974): 5–14. As for Britain, the British Association for the History of Religions was established in September 1954 (cf.
BAHR, Bulletin no. 31 [1980]: 7–9).
2 Ishizu Teruji 石津照璽, “Shūkyō kenkyū no mondai to dōkō: Saikin waga kuni ni okeru” 宗教研究の問題と動向——最近わが国における—— [Recent Trends and Problems in the Science of Religion], Shūkyō kenkyū 宗教研究 no. 163 (1960).

©Japanese Association for Religious Studies 2021

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to new stimuli, we can tentatively divide JARS’s journey into two broad periods―one before and one after the year
1945. A highlight of the postwar period was undoubtedly the Ninth International Congress for the History of
Religions in Tokyo and the Kansai area in 1958. 3 It not only dramatically heightened JARS’s international standing
but was also truly a landmark event in IAHR’s history as its first congress held outside of Europe.
Seen from this perspective, JARS’s history up through today can be divided into the prehistory up to its 1930
founding, the time from its founding until 1945, and the time of rebuilding that followed its interruption due to thewar. Furthermore, this final period can be subdivided based on the above-described international congress and otherevents. It is not easy to write about each of these periods while exhaustively taking into account domestic situations
and international relations; the internal operations of the association itself and these operations’ historical and societal
backgrounds; the research activities of members and organizational/institutional aspects; and so on. Therefore, thebelow overview just roughly traces broad developments, and it will be necessary for others to fill in the details withthe below-included materials and other resources. 4 However, we still venture to critically trace JARS’s journey, themany inadequacies in our attempt notwithstanding, because we wish to contribute to explorations of future directions
for the association.
2. Until JARS’s Establishment
At the association’s fifteenth conference in 1955 (University of Tokyo), Oguchi Iichi 小口偉一 gave a talkentitled “The Fifty-Year Journey of Religious Studies” (Shūkyō gaku 50 nen no ayumi 宗教学五十年の歩み;
published in Shūkyō kenkyū 宗教研究 no. 147 5). Being one of the few summary discussions of the development ofreligious studies in our country up to that time, it is a valuable article. Therein, he divides the field’s history in Japan
into three periods. First, a period, primarily the Meiji years (1868–1912), that began with the establishment of a classon Buddhist texts at Imperial University 6 during the early Meiji. It includes the 1905 establishment of a chair (kōza講座) in religious studies in Tokyo Imperial University’s College of Letters, and the beginning of full-fledged
research and education in the field. Second, a period during which this field was passed on to the next generation
after entering the Taishō years (1912–1926). Third, a period spanning from the 1930 founding of the Japanese
Association for Religious Studies until the present. Rather than historical eras, these divisions are based on leading
figures’ academic styles, but overall are appropriate. Following this, let us broadly divide the developments leading
to the association’s founding into three stages: (1) up to 1905, (2) between 1905 and 1916, and (3) between 1916 and
1930.
The first stage was the path that led to religious studies gaining acceptance as an academic field in modern

3 Translated into Japanese as “Kokusai shūkyōgaku shūkyōshi kaigi” 国際宗教学宗教史会議, which literally means “International

Congress for Religious Studies and the History of Religions.” The circumstances of this translation’s official adoption are explained in
Ishizu, op. cit., as well as touched on in Oguchi Iichi 小口偉一, “Shūkyō Kenkyūkai to Nihon Shūkyōgakkai: Kikanshi ‘Shūkyō
kenkyū’ no 40 nen” 宗教研究会と日本宗教学会——機関誌『宗教研究』の四十年—— [The Religion Research Association and
the Japanese Association for Religious Studies: Forty Years of the Journal of Religious Studies], Shūkyō kenkyū no. 238 (1979).
4 Translator’s note: Translations of the attached reference materials referred to by the authors have not been included here, andtherefore subsequent references to them have been omitted.
5 Translator’s note: Unless otherwise noted, “no.” in Shūkyō kenkyū citations refers to the consecutive issue number. See the lastparagraph in Section 4 and note 20.
6 Translator’s note: Subsequently renamed Tokyo Imperial University.

2research and educational institutions, and it contains many ascents and descents. During this time, we find an
enlightenmentist view that spoke of religion’s evolution and debates like the so-called “clash between religion andeducation” (shūkyō to kyōiku no shōtotsu 宗教卜教育ノ衝突) that took the world by storm in the 1890s. Against
this historical backdrop, the Unitarian Kishimoto Nobuta 岸本能武太, who founded the Association for Comparative
Religion (Hikaku Shūkyō Gakkai 比較宗教学会) in 1896, and others called for free inquiry into religion, preparinga path towards the field’s independence. With research recently having finally begun on the details of this time’s
historical circumstances, 7 we will not go into them here. However, we must note that, as Oguchi also points out, on
the whole, there were a very few religious studies scholars during the Meiji period, as well as that their status as bothscholars and believers prescribed to a considerable degree the substance of “religious studies.” Anesaki Masaharu 姉
崎正治, a major religious studies scholar of this time, was also a Buddhist scholar. Katō Genchi 加藤玄智 was a
Shinto scholar, 8 and Hatano Seiichi 波多野精一 had strong Christian leanings.
The year 1905 is particularly important in the history, primarily institutional history, of Japan’s field of religious
studies. Of course, this is because a chair in religious studies was created at Tokyo Imperial University’s College ofLetters. Anesaki was appointed to lead it. In the following year, a chair in religious studies was created when a collegeof letters was added to Kyoto Imperial University. While this was approximately thirty years later than some placesin Europe (history of religion chairs were established at universities in the Dutch cities of Leiden, Amsterdam, Utrecht,
and Groningen in 1876 and at Uppsala University in Sweden in 1878), it was actually earlier than, for example,
Germany (where history of religion chairs were established at University of Berlin in 1910 and Leipzig University
in 1912). This was followed by an increase in public and private universities in Japan holding classes or establishing
chairs in religious studies. Around 1930, they numbered about eighteen.
At any rate, such circumstances of the field’s establishment in our country form the background to one of itsdistinguishing characteristics: its breadth. While in Europe and the United States, often religious studies was foundwithin theology faculties and centered on the history of religions (which is probably part of the reason that thedesignation “history of religions” is still commonly used in the West today), in contrast, in Japan there were few
restrictions placed on the field by specific religions (at least institutionally), and research topics were not necessarily
limited solely to “the history of religions” proper. In this sense, the fourfold conception of the field that Anesaki
presented in his Comparative Religion: Or, Outline of Religious Studies (Hikaku shūkyō gaku: Ichimei shūkyōgaku
gairon 比較宗教学—一名宗教学概論; 1898)—psychology of religion, ethics of religion, sociology of religion,
pathology of religion—is very important. It goes without saying that there was research on the psychology of religion(James, Freud) and the sociology of religion (Durkheim, Weber) in Europe and the United States. However, thesetended to be seen as different in nature from religious studies, and still today such scholarship and religious studies

7 Suzuki Norihisa 鈴木範久, Meiji shūkyō shichō no kenkyū: Shūkyōgaku kotohajime 明治宗教思潮の研究―宗教学事始―[Researchon Intellectual Trends in Meiji Religion: The Beginnings of Religious Studies] (Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1979). This painstakingly
written book is the first substantial depiction of, as indicated by its subtitle, the prehistory of modern religious studies’ establishment inrelation to the era’s intellectual trends.
8 Translator’s note: The original describes Anesaki as a bukkyōgakusha 仏教学者 (Buddhist studies scholar) and Katō as a
shintōgakusha 神道学者 (Shinto studies scholar), but considering the context, I have translated these as “Buddhist scholar” and“Shinto scholar,” respectively.

3(the history of religions) have a strong tendency towards mutual dissociation. The relative breadth of our country’s
field of religious studies, reflected in Anesaki’s above conception, is worth noting. It encompasses all of these typesof research.
One event deserving of special mention from JARS’s prehistory is the creation of the Religion Research
Association (Shūkyō Kenkyūkai 宗教研究会) and launch of its organ Journal of Religious Studies (Shūkyō kenkyū)
in 1916. People connected to the religious studies and Indian philosophy departments of the imperial universities inTokyo and Kyoto played leading roles. The Religion Research Association continued to exist after JARS’sestablishment, and then merged, along with its journal, with the latter in 1938. It is a separate yet very closely relatedorganization: there was great overlap between members, and ever since this merger, the Journal of Religious Studies
has been JARS’s organ. We ask readers interested in the details regarding the development of the Journal of Religious
Studies (vol. 1, issue no. 1 of which was published in April 1916), to refer to the two-hundredth issue (1969) roundtable talk between past editors, the overview of past issues’ content found in the same issue, as well as the complete
table of contents of past issues published in issue no. 221 (1975). Here, we have included the first set of the Religion
Research Association’s bylaws (published in vol. 1, issue no. 1 and elsewhere).
Bylaws
1． This association is called the Religion Research Association.
2． The purpose of this association is research on religion.
3． This association’s members are divided into two types: special members and regular members.
4． This association carries out the following work:-

Publishing and distributing to members the quarterly Journal of Religious Studies.

-

Holding an annual conference and, as appropriate, smaller conferences.

5． This association will have the below officials:-

Advisors: several-

Committeepersons: several

6． Advisors are recommended from special members by the committee, and committeepersons are elected bymembers.
7． Membership dues are of the following two types:-

Special members: ¥5/year-

Regular members: ¥2.5/year(Students: ¥2/year)

8． This association’s secretariat will be located in the religious studies department offices of the colleges ofletters of Tokyo and Kyoto’s imperial universities.
9． Individuals who wish to become a member of this association should apply to this association’s secretariat
with the introduction of a member and a half-year of membership dues.
10．Detailed bylaws necessary for this association will be established separately.
(End)

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From the subsequent publishing of Journal of Religious Studies, as well as the journal’s “Various Reports fromthe Academic World” (Gakkai ihō 学界彙報) column, we can tell that this research association was very active. At
the time, this journal was the only authoritative religion research journal in Japan. However, it did not only cover
religious studies in a narrow sense. More than a few articles have content that could be described as Shinto studies,
Buddhist studies, and Christian studies. We can see that its broad and composite nature―it also encompassed
research on these individual religions―was passed on to JARS (along with its organizational characteristics).
3. JARS’s Establishment and Prewar Activities
The Japanese Association for Religious Studies was founded in 1930. Here, we will briefly describe thecircumstances leading up to its founding. On 10 and 11 May 1930, a group created to mark the twenty-fifth
anniversary of the founding of Tokyo Imperial University’s chair in religious studies held a commemorative religious
studies conference. A commemorative exhibition of texts related to the field of religious studies was also held on theeleventh. 9 This conference’s commemorative lecture, research presentations, and other materials were published as
Religious Studies Bulletin (Shūkyōgaku kiyō 宗 教 学 紀 要 ) along with the group’s Religious Studies Article
Collection (Shūkyōgaku ronshū 宗教学論集). At the conference’s consultative meeting held on the afternoon of thesecond day, it was decided “with basically no objections” that the Japanese Association for Religious Studies would
be founded. This was after deliberations based on a motion submitted in advance on the first day by the conference’s
executive committee. However, working out the details, including its bylaws, was left to an appointed twenty-oneperson committee. This committee consisted of one person from each of the eighteen schools with a religious studies
chair or class (two people from Tokyo Imperial University), as well as two individuals not affiliated with any school.10
As stated in its first bylaw at the time, JARS aimed “to facilitate research-related communication between groups
and individuals related to religious studies research.” This took the form of a biannual conference and the publicationof a conference proceedings. While from today’s perspective, two years feels like a somewhat long interval, at thetime, it may have been normal. Also, considering that, as we have described, there was also the Religion Research
Association and its bimonthly Journal of Religious Studies, the aim of facilitating communication may have alreadybeen being met adequately. At any rate, one pronounced characteristic of JARS at its founding was its somewhat adhoc nature. In other words, “upon each conference” officers, including its president, were elected and members
contributed their membership dues. Therefore, officer names in the Proceedings were listed under headings such as“The Second Conference’s Officers,” and its budget reports took a similar form: for example, “The Second

9 Respectively: Tōkyō Teikoku Daigaku Shūkyōgaku Kōza Sōsetsu 25 Nen Kinenkai 東京帝国大学宗教学講座創設二十五年記念会, Kinen Shūkyōgaku Taikai 記念宗教学大会, and Kinen Shūkyōgaku Bunken Tenrankai 記念宗教学文献展覧会.

10 Shūkyōgaku kiyō 宗教学紀要 (September 1931; pp. 336–337) lists eighteen schools: Komazawa University, Kyongsong (Keijo)

University, Kyushu University, Kyoto Imperial University, Ryukoku University, Aoyama Gakuin University, Waseda University, Tokyo
Imperial University, Rikkyo University, Hosei University, Nihon University, Keio University, Toyo University, Tohoku Imperial
University, Taisho University, Chizan Academy (Chizan Senmon Gakkō 智山専門学校), and Rinzaishu University. However, thesecond conference’s proceedings Nihon no shūkyōgaku 日本の宗教学 (December 1933; p. 334) states, “With regard to organizations
whose participation as supporters was accepted upon the association’s establishment, there are the following nineteen schools,” and theabove list appears with the addition of Koyasan University. Furthermore, it lists Doshisha University, Okura Institute for the Study of
Spiritual Culture (Ōkura Seishin Bunka Kenkyūsho 大倉山精神文化研究所), and Toyo Bunko as organizations that joined in July 1931.
Also, in the list of committeepersons (p. 337), a representative from Otani University, which is not found above, is included. At any rate,from this we can see that the association was a national one and that it gradually grew.

5Conference’s Settlement of Accounts Report.” 11
However, developments would immediately appear despite this characteristic that would establish JARS as acoherent, permanent organization. This can be seen in how officers were organized, clerical duties, and accounting.
As for officers, after the association’s establishment was agreed upon, while it was “decided for convenience toentrust clerical duties” to twenty-one officers “up to the holding of the next conference,” at its meeting held soon
thereafter the committee elected “to request that this conference’s vice-president and president” serve as such “until
the next conference” (“Dai ni kai taikai kiyō” 第二回大会紀要, in Nihon no shūkyōgaku 日本の宗教学, pp. 333–
334). With representatives of groups affiliated with JARS serving as committeepersons, they appear to haveparticularly been a factor in making JARS into a permanent organization. Permanency in clerical duties was ensured
by having “The Liaison Office . . . for the time being be established in the Religious Studies Department Office ofTokyo Imperial University.” This temporary measure has actually already been in place for a half-century (excludinginterruptions to some degree during wartime and the like).
Another pressing problem was accounting. At the time of its launch, JARS’s policy was to have members
contribute ¥3 as membership dues “upon each conference” and then use these funds to hold the conference, as wellas put together, publish, and distribute the Bulletin. However, it soon became clear that this alone was insufficient.
Already by the time of the third conference in 1934 (Rissho University), the committee had deliberated and approved“establishing a sustaining member system and asking for a contribution of ¥5 or more yearly” because “it is
impossible to hold the conference[s] with membership dues alone.” This proposal was approved at the members’
consultative meeting as well (Dai 3 kai taikai kiyō 第三回大会紀要, pp. 346–347). In the end, this was reflected in
the bylaws. In this way, due to such accounting and other reasons, a yearly system would be gradually adopted formembership dues; they were no longer paid only “upon each conference.” 12 In short, JARS found its footing while
overcoming these initial difficulties and developed its set of activities centered on biannual conferences and the
publication of the Proceedings.
With JARS having been founded at the commemorative religious studies conference at Tokyo Imperial
University in 1930, the first conference officially held in the new association’s name was in 1932 at Taisho University.
However, due to the tactfulness of Yabuki Keiki 矢吹慶輝, the head of Taisho University’s Religious Studies
Department Office, it was deemed the second conference, thereby giving Tokyo Imperial University the honor of
having hosted the first one in 1930. Subsequently, conferences followed this. 13 In December 1930, theaforementioned committee invited approximately five hundred people in Japan to join and then sent out a second
round of invitations in February 1932. It was reported that this resulted in over two hundred people joining, a figurethat basically matches the 214 members of the second conference (“Dai 2 kai taikai kaikei kessan hōkoku” 第二回大会会計決算報告). Incidentally, there were 222 members for the third conference, and 242 regular members and

11 The first submitted Liaison Office accounting report (1 January 1937 to 15 December 1938) was found in the fourth conference’s

proceedings (Dai 4 kai taikai kiyō 第四回大会紀要; p. 356).
12 The remnants of the original approach can be seen even after the bylaws were revised in December 1938 upon merger with the
Religion Research Association in the “temporary member” (rinji kaiin 臨時会員) system. These members would pay membershipdues at each conference, present, and receive the conference’s proceedings.
13 See page 239 of Oguchi Iichi’s previously-cited special contribution (Shūkyō kenkyū no. 238) and page 325 of the second
conference’s proceedings Nihon no shūkyōgaku.

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39 sustaining members for the fourth conference (Komazawa University). From these figures, one can acquire apretty accurate idea of the organization’s size.
Particularly deserving of mention in JARS’s pre-World War II history is the 1938 merger of the aforementioned
Religion Research Association and JARS, a character compound meaning “quarterly” (kikan 季刊) being added to
the Japanese title of the Journal of Religious Studies, and this journal beginning to be published as JARS’s organ.
The editorial postscript of the journal’s first subsequently published issue (year 1, installment [shū 輯] 1; June 1939)
announces this and describes the journal’s ambitions: “While the organ of an academic society, it will not become
vainly absorbed in narrow academia but fully respect the history and spirit that has followed its first publication in1916 and maintain its prestige as the top journal in the field.” It was decided that one of its four yearly installments
would be a special feature and that the biannual conference’s Proceedings would be published as this special feature,
thereby forming this journal’s outlines that continue to exist up through today. This merger also involved wideranging revisions to the bylaws, the Japanese name of which changed from kiyaku 規約 to kaisoku 会則. In theconference regulations that were separately established, as well as the fourth bylaw’s explicit separation of the generalaffairs/accounting department and the editorial department, we can clearly see the traces of these two ostensibly
separate organizations having merged.
However, as these developments took place, the situation surrounding JARS had been growing increasingly
fraught. While the fifth conference was held in 1938 (Rikkyo University), the sixth in 1940 (Ryukoku University),
and the seventh in 1942 (University of Tokyo), the eighth had to be postponed. In the association news column of
the Journal of Religious Studies’s 120th issue (July 1944), we find the following: “While this year the association’seighth conference should be held, in light of the current state of affairs and following the authorities’ course, it has
been decided that it will be postponed for some time. The above was decided on 16 July after President Anesaki
sought the opinions of councilors and all replied that there is ‘no choice but to postpone the conference’” (p. 89).
After this issue, the Journal of Religious Studies was forced to halt publication for over four years.
4. The Relaunching of JARS’s Activities
While it was a time when anything and everything was lacking, the intellectual thirst that struck people shortly
after the war’s conclusion was impressive. Used books were sold at high prices, and people would form long lines
early in the morning―sometimes throughout the night―at publishers to purchase the new publications and republications that were available in limited quantities due to a lack of paper. It took almost two years for the
association’s activities to begin amidst this chaos. In 1947, JARS’s council (Hyōgiinkai 評議員会) met and two
public lectures were held on the topic of “religion and education.” In the spring of the following year, the association
joined a federation of fields adjacent to religious studies called the Gakkai Rengō 学会連合 (later Kyū Gakkai Rengō
九学会連合). Despite the interruption, people had been working hard and continuing research in one form or another.
This first took form as the special feature “Issues in Contemporary Religious Studies” (Gendai shūkyōgaku no
mondai 現代宗教学の問題) of the association’s publication Journal of Religious Studies (new series [fukkan 復刊]
no. 1; consecutive numbering no. 121; September 1948; ¥150). This was the journal’s first issue since no. 120 in July
1944. It included six articles: Kishimoto Hideo’s 岸本英夫 “The Territory of Religious Studies” (Shūkyōgaku no7

ryōiki 宗教学の領域), Ōhata Kiyoshi’s 大畠清 “Foundations of the History of Religions” (Shūkyōshi-gaku kisoron
宗教史学基礎論), Ishizu Teruji’s “Issues in and Directions of the Philosophy of Religion” (Shūkyō tetsugaku no
mondai to hōkō” 宗教哲学の問題と方向), Katayama Masanao’s 片山正直 “The Philosophy of Religion andExistential Philosophy” (Shūkyō tetsugaku to jitsuzon tetsugaku 宗教哲学と実存哲学), Miyamoto Shōson’s 宮本
正尊 “The Buddhist View of Truth” (Bukkyō shinrikan 仏教真理観), and Inaba Shūken’s 稲葉秀賢 “The Nature of
the Teachings in Shinran” (Shinran ni okeru kyō no seikaku 親鸞に於ける教の性格). Furthermore, it also featured
reflections on and trends in religious studies methodology, and overviews of the current state of Shinto, Buddhist,and Christian studies. Together, these made the empirical nature and inductive method of religious studies research
clear. This signified both a generational shift as well as a relaunching point that newly indicated the basic directionof the association’s activities. This basic direction continues to be the same today.
From 23 to 26 October of the same year, the association’s eighth conference―the first in postwar times―was
held at the University of Tokyo. With the previous (seventh) conference having been held in 1942, it was the firsttime in six years. There were research presentations by twenty-three people in two sessions, presentations by six
people on the shared topic of “the person” (hito 人), and public talks by two people. The journal’s special feature“Religion and Humans” (Shūkyō to ningen 宗教と人間; new series no. 2) was the proceedings of this conference.
Subsequently, the association would hold annual conferences, which were held outside of Tokyo every other year.
From the immediate postwar period until around this time, elder association members passed away one after another.
The ninth conference held at Tohoku University in 1949 ended up also serving as a memorial gathering for the late
President Anesaki, and the journal’s special feature “Death and Religion” (Shi to shūkyō 死と宗教; new series no.
3) became a memorial issue. This conference also included the association’s first attempt to hold an interdisciplinary
free discussion. The topic was “Relations with Adjacent Sciences: Methods for Research on Religion” (Shūkyō
kenkyū no hōhō o chūshin to suru rinsetsu shokagaku to no kankei 宗教研究の方法を中心とする隣接諸科学との関係; Shūkyō kenkyū no. 123: 127–136).
The association still could not publish its journal more than annually. It had been only publishing an annual
special feature on a specific topic for the past three years. However, beginning with issue no. 124 in February 1951,
it began to publish four issues per year, as it had done in early pre-war times and after the journal’s title had beenchanged to indicate that it was a quarterly publication. Also, manuscript submission guidelines began to be included
at the end of each volume. While the outlines of these submission guidelines are the same as those currently in effect,
the guidelines dictated that authors would be presented with only ten reprints of their articles. The journal’s shift toa quarterly required three and a half years, after which the current practice of publishing four installments eachacademic year, with the third one being the conference proceedings, became basically set in stone. It was with the1958 academic year’s volume 32, installment 1 (issue no. 156) that issues would begin to be referred to using a
numbering system that reflected its quarterly status: a volume (kan 卷) number that increases yearly and installment(shū) number that restarts with each volume.
5. The Religion and Education Committee
The year following the conclusion of World War II, Japan’s new constitution was adopted. Article 20 deals with8

the freedom of religion, and its third item states, “The State and its organs shall refrain from religious education or
any other religious activity.” The association expressed its views regarding this part of the constitution through theaforementioned public lectures on religion and education, the tenth conference’s joint discussion and resolution on“Education about Religion at Schools” (1950), and the establishment of the Religion and Education Committee(Shūkyō to Kyōiku Iinkai 宗教と教育委員会) in the following year in accordance with a members’ general assembly
resolution. Lamenting people’s disordered values, the resolution held that the state must provide the nation with basic
knowledge about religion and particularly ensure that teachers are knowledgeable regarding the subject. At themembers’ general assembly of the twelfth conference, a resolution passed “calling for spreading and making thoroughknowledge about religion at schools in Japan” (Shūkyō kenkyū no. 133: 494). Subsequently, the committee continued
its work, and the Education and Cultivation Committee (Kyōiku Kyōyō Iinkai 教育教養委員会) was also formed.
This latter committee engaged in basic theoretical research on education about religion and morality. With researchfunds from the Ministry of Education, it engaged in a research project on how views of life and religion, moral
thought, and other similar topics were being handled in Japanese school education, as well as theory regarding these
topics’ treatment, and brought together its findings in a research bulletin. 14
Today, while the Education and Cultivation Committee is no longer active, the Religion and Education
Committee continues its work.
6. The Ninth International Congress for the History of Religions
The relationship between the Japanese Association for Religious Studies and the International Association for
the History of Religions (IAHR) began after World War II. IAHR can be traced back to the First International
Congress for the History of Religions (ICHR) held in Paris in 1900. Subsequently, this international congress washeld once every four years in Europe, and each congress appointed the subsequent congress’s organizing committee.
Starting in 1912, the time between congresses gradually grew longer, and after the 1935 sixth congress in Brussels,
Belgium, congresses ceased to be held due to World War II. After the war, with few organizing committee members
remaining, their numbers were gradually increased, and in 1950 the seventh congress was held in Amsterdam. At thistime, its academic organization was turned into a permanent one with bylaws and officers, and the International
Association for the Study of History of Religions (IASHR) was launched. International congresses were then held
once every five years. In the following year, IASHR became a member of UNESCO’s International Council for
Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH), a requirement of which was being comprised of country-based groups.
IASHR responded while taking into account the reality of its membership, changing its bylaws’ membership types
to include not only national groups but also other groups and individuals.
From these early times, JARS was part of IASHR. While, of course, Japanese scholars had been participating as
individuals, it was at this time that the association itself came to have a relationship with IASHR.
Wanting to bring IASHR’s international congress to Japan, JARS initiated contact at the seventh international

14 The research project’s title was as follows: “Gendai Nihon no gakkō kyōiku ni okeru jinseikan, shūkyōkan, dōtoku shisō tō notoriatsukai ni kansuru riron to jittai no chōsa” 現代日本の学校教育における人生観・宗教観・道徳思想等の取り扱いに関する理論と実態の調査 [Theory and a fact-finding survey regarding the handling of views of life, views of religion, moral thought, etc. incontemporary Japanese school education].

9congress. At the members’ general assembly of JARS’s eleventh conference at Tenri University in the following year,
a motion passed stating that the association wishes to have the ninth international congress be held in 1958 in Japan.
At the same time, it was decided that a research committee would be established. This was followed by forming a
promotion committee for the congress in 1953 and submitting Japan’s bid proposal at the eighth international
congress two years later in Rome. As planned, the total budget was ¥5.2 million. These funds were going to comefrom government aid and collected domestic donations. At the international congress in Rome, the International
Association for the Study of History of Religions’ name was shortened to the International Association for the History
of Religions (IAHR), and Japan’s bid for the upcoming ninth international congress was discussed and approved.
While per the bylaws, this congress should have been held in 1960, an exception was made. At this time, JARS’spresident was Ōhata Kiyoshi. Japan’s promotion committee approved this decision, disbanded itself, and a
preparatory committee for the ninth congress was formed. In November 1956, Ishizu Teruji was chosen as JARS
president, and in light of the ninth congress in Tokyo and Kyoto being scheduled during his term, it was decided that
all non-general affairs association work (accounting, editing) would be temporarily assigned to the Religious Studies
Department Office in Tohoku University’s Faculty of Arts and Letters. Accounting work was transferred in the next
academic year. Editing/publishing at Tohoku University began with volume 32, installment 1 (issue no. 156), which
was published the year of the international congress. (This was the first issue that used the “volume - installment”
numbering format.)At the end of 1956, it was officially decided to translate IAHR and ICHR as Kokusai Shūkyōgaku Shūkyōshi
Gakkai 国際宗教学宗教史学会 (lit., International Association for Religious Studies and the History of Religions)and Kokusai Shūkyōgaku Shūkyōshi Kaigi 国際宗教学宗教史会議 (lit., International Congress for Religious
Studies and the History of Religions), respectively, and the preparatory committee’s Japanese name was changed yet
again to match these translations (Shūkyō kenkyū no. 150: 224). After entering the next year, the preparatorycommittee began to structurally expand and became quite active, with clerical and operations divisions being created,
as well as program and fundraising planning sub-committees being added.
At the 1957 JARS conference at Taisho University, in anticipation of the international congress the following
year, a symposium was held entitled “The Characteristics of Japanese People’s Religious Heart and Mind” (Nihonjin
no shūkyōshin no tokushitsu 日本人の宗教心の特質; Shūkyō kenkyū no. 154: 364–367). Up to this point, in addition
to the preparatory committee, organizing and arrangements committees had also been created after deliberations at
the Science Council of Japan (Gakujutsu Kaigi 学術会議) and approval by the Cabinet of Japan. The Arrangements
Committee consisted of program, fund-raising, finance, and selection committees, as well as a committee for theKansai district. With this structure in place, final preparations began. In this way, the Ninth International Congress
for the History of Religions became a reality. It was held from 27 August to 4 September in Tokyo, and 5 to 9
September in Kyoto. Details have already been brought together in Proceedings of the IXth International Congress
for the History of Religions: Tokyo and Kyoto 1958 (edited by the Japanese Organizing Committee for the IX I.C.H.R.,
and published in 1960 by Maruzen in Tokyo). The Tokyo international congress was a new endeavor for IAHR, andat first the European side saw it along the following lines: “Though primarily meant for the scholars in the Far East,
this Congress will be entitled to label itself as the 9th congress of the I.A.H.R., because a small delegation from
Europe and from America will presumably guarantee its international character” (Numen 2 [1955]: 240). However,10when they actually participated in the conference in Japan and witnessed its living religions, this changed completely:“[The Tokyo international congress] completely changed the situation. Already the fact that an official congress of
the I.A.H.R. was held in the East meant a turning point in its history” (Numen 7 [1960]: 223). Participating registeredmembers numbered 354 Japanese (including forty presenters) and 123 foreigners (including sixty-two presenters),
thirty of whom were from dozens of other Asian and African countries (including fifteen presenters). Israel and Japan
were the only of these Asian and African countries with an organization for research on religion. It was then decided“to make a vigorous effort to extend the IAHR to the East.” This was prompted by the insight that “the IAHR[,]
which at the moment actually mainly is an [sic] European and American affair, will first really be entitled to callitself ‘international’ when it also embraces a number of Eastern members” (Numen 6 [1959]: 74; Numen 7 [1960]:
216).
Ninety-three people from outside Japan (including forty-seven presenters)―fifty-five Europeans (including
twenty-nine presenters), thirty-seven Americans (including eighteen presents), and one person from Oceania―is notvery different from the percentage of participants from Asia and Africa at congresses held in Europe or the UnitedStates. The impressions of the Tokyo/Kyoto international congress revealed by people from the West were, naturally,a kind of cultural shock, and some time was necessary for them to regrasp their impressions’ semantic content in thewords of scholars. The conclusion reached in the end was something like the following: “On the one hand the oriental
student is inclined to contend that the very heart of religion can best be reached by intuition and that the ultimate
result of the study of religious phenomena must be a deeper insight in the actual value of religion. On the other hand
the western student of the history of religions is convinced that his sole task consists of a painstaking study of greateror minor segments of a certain religion in order to understand their religious meaning in a tentative way and that hehas to refrain from pronouncing any kind of value judgments” (Numen 7 [1960]: 226). 15 The program structure of
the ninth international congress was presented as one concrete manifestation of this. However, its three-partstructure―presentations in four sections, 16 plenary sessions, and tours―was not particularly unusual in numbers andcategories from other international congresses of the time. Also, history of religions sections came before religious
studies sections, which was actually the opposite of standard practice at JARS’s conferences.
There is also the issue of the nature of the congress’s content. Unique in this regard were the following: theplenary session “Religion in the East,” which followed the above four sections (Proceedings, pp. 615–661), thesymposium, carried out with the cooperation of UNESCO headquarters and entitled “Religion and Thought in Eastand West, a Century of Cultural Exchange,” and the research field trips, which took up five days during the congress
and three days following the congress (Shūkyō kenkyū no. 156: 105–109). The international congress had a strong
interdisciplinary quality due to its five plenary sessions, 17 the twelve round-table sessions that followed, the closeviewing of the religious conditions of Japan 18 in Kanto’s Nikko, Tokyo, and Kamakura, as well as Kansai’s Ise, Tenri,

15 Translator’s note: Emphasis added by author.

16 Primitive Religions; Religions of Antiquity; Living Religions other than Primitive Religions; and General: Phenomenology,

Psychology of Religion, Sociology of Religion, Philosophy of Religion.
17 1. The Characteristics of Oriental Culture, The Characteristics of Occidental Culture; 2. The Influence of Occidental Thought on the
Orient, The Influence of Christianity on the Orient; 3. The Influence of Oriental Culture on the Occident, The Influence of Oriental
Religions on the Occident; 4. The Common Concern: The Problem of an Emerging World Civilization; 5. The Contribution of Oriental
and Occidental Religions to Cultural Understanding.
18 In his opening address, the international congress’s honorary president Takahito 崇仁, Prince Mikasa 三笠 described Japan as “aliving laboratory and a living museum to those who are interested in the study of the history of religions.”

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Nara, and Kyoto, and the discussions that took place at each locale.
This unique content resulted from hosts’ perceptions of research subjects and methodological choices in religion
scholarship, as well as the circumstances of this field’s establishment and its subsequent development in Japan. It is
not something of the sort that can be explained by “intuition” that stands in contrast to the West’s working hypothesis
method. Japan’s students also learn and use inductive and working hypothesis methods. However, when it comes tothe composition of presentation sessions at academic conferences, while in the West the research conferences andsymposiums held (primarily in Europe) between international congresses have a strong interdisciplinary nature andit is the international congresses that are sub-divided by field, in contrast, JARS’s conferences are divided by field
and the composition of the (albeit sole) Japan-hosted international congress took on a strong interdisciplinary nature,a situation not unrelated to the aforementioned circumstances of this field’s establishment in Japan. This is an issue
that is related to the term “history of religions” being used in the West and “religious studies” being used in the East.
In both the West and the East, scholars are doing the same thing (albeit at different types of academic
conferences/congresses), and the difference is related to whether synthesis or analysis is emphasized when scholars
place the research subject of “religion” in their fields of vision. 19
The Tokyo/Kyoto IAHR international congress adopted a recommendation to IAHR that included creating
religious studies research associations that would become IAHR members in Eastern countries, as was already foundin Japan. An ad hoc committee for IAHR/AA (Asian-African) groups, comprised of Japan, India, United Arab
Republic, Burma, Pakistan, and South Korea, took on this work. A Japan committee for IAHR/AA groups was also
formed for this purpose in JARS and began its activities. IAHR national associations were formed in India and South
Korea by the year following the international congress. Ceylon became a branch of India’s association. Also, JARS’s
Ishizu Teruji and Kishimoto Hideo became IAHR headquarters officers in 1960 at Marburg’s international congress:
the former the IAHR vice-president and the latter the IAHR/AA groups ad hoc committee head. Ishizu was then twice
re-elected. Later, Abe Masao 阿部正雄 was chosen as IAHR vice-president in 1975 at the Lancaster international
congress.
As is shown by congresses’ sessions gradually increasing in number, academic associations have tended to be
more specialized with the specialization of academic study itself, and this came to influence existing academic
associations as well. Specialists have come to gather in specialized research groups. This tendency easily influences
academic associations with many disciplines (like IAHR). Sessions increase, presenters also therefore increase, andinternational conferences become enormous. For this reason, new arrangements are being attempted. For example,

19 Editor’s note: This section may need a note for clarification. The authors are arguing that the IAHR secretary general’s comments
were biased because:
1. The program of the Tokyo Congress simply followed previous IAHR international congresses’ order of sections (history of
religions followed by the study of religion). Not being eccentric in that regard, criticism of the program structure is unfair.
2. The IAHR secretary general’s impression was due to the Tokyo Congress being interdisciplinary instead of strictly dedicatedto historical-philological studies.
Interdisciplinarity was not welcomed by him and other European IAHR members because they thought it would
undermine the strictly inductive method of history-philology. The authors are arguing against him that European historiansof religions also participate in interdisciplinary conferences in contexts other than IAHR’s international congresses.
Moreover, as described earlier in this article, the study of religion in Japan started as a multi-methodology discipline
rather than as the history of religions. Therefore, the difference between Japan and Europe (intuition or induction) is more
due to differences in the institutional history of the discipline than those in inborn mental faculties, the existence of which
the secretary general’s comment may imply.

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specialized academic associations hold conferences together, sessions are flexibly run in accordance with the sharedinterests of their interdisciplinary sets of participants, and so on. In the case of IAHR, its relationship with UNESCO
imposes certain restrictions, and the need is emerging for some response.
7. After the International Congress
In the year of the Ninth International Congress for the History of Religions, JARS’s conference was canceledand only a members’ general assembly was held. In the following year, its eighteenth conference was held at Kwansei
Gakuin University. With the afterglow of the international congress still present, a symposium, entitled “Religions
and Religion: The Relative and Absolute Aspects of Views on Religion” (Shoshūkyō to shūkyō: Shūkyōkan no
sōtaisei to zettaisei 諸宗教と宗教――宗教観の相対性と絶対性) was held that offered arguments for and against
the ideas regarding the unity of religions discussed by [Friedrich] Heiler in his talk at the previous year’s international
congress (Shūkyō kenkyū no. 162: 88). Ishizu Teruji then summarized the symposium in his own way in “Recent
Trends and Problems in the Science of Religion” (Shūkyō kenkyū no mondai to dōkō 宗教研究の問題と動向),
which was published in issue no. 163 of Journal of Religious Studies. Therein, he touches on a movement toward
integrative research, exemplified by the new terms “human relations” and “human ecology,” that “attempts to grasp
humans in terms of the overall web of the endeavor that is life” (sei no itonami no zentaiteki renkan kara ningen otoraeyō to suru 生の営みの全体的連関から人間をとらえようとする). This was a topic that would later come to
be discussed at IAHR international study conferences. Also, in his discussion of methodology, Ishizu attempted to
explicitly situate [Joachim] Wach’s relative objectivity of “understanding (Verstehen)” as a religious studies method
while drawing from the phenomenology of religion.
In April 1961, Japan’s organizing committee for its international congress was dissolved. Also, accounting workand journal editing work returned to Tokyo in 1961 from their temporary home of the Religious Studies Department
Office in Tohoku University’s Faculty of Arts and Letters. (In Tokyo, editors began working on volume 35,
installment 1.) On this occasion, the editing system, which had been led by standing members of the Board of
Directors, switched to one comprised of Editorial Board members. Submission guidelines also changed to a degree
and now dictated that authors would be provided with twenty article reprints. Also, the presentation abstracts in thejournal’s conference proceedings issue switched from alphabetical order by presenter name to session presentation
order. Abstracts continue to be published in this way today.
Within years of the first JARS conference following WWII’s end, the number of presenters exceeded one
hundred. Today, it has increased to approximately two hundred with fluctuations along the way. In response, due tothe conference’s time restrictions, sessions, of which there were originally two, have gradually grown in number. In
recent times, there have been around seven sessions (at most nine). Generally, Session 1 consists of general religious
studies presentations, with other sessions being divided up as appropriate based on the thinking of the hosting school.
Classification criteria have come into place for these other sessions: philosophy of religion, Christianity,
Buddhism/Indian philosophy, ethnology of religion, folklore of religion, religious education, surveys, and so on. A
system would be adopted that is beneficial for both readers and editors: it places presentation abstracts in similarfields in proximity to each other, and greatly reduces the editorial hassle of handling a large number of abstracts
consisting of comparatively few pages.

13

The Journal of Religious Studies’ special feature on methods in religious studies (no. 191) showed one of theachievements that followed the international congress.
Due to the student protests that began in 1968 at the University of Tokyo, gradually it became difficult to continue
JARS work at the Faculty of Letter’s Religious Studies Department Office. Therefore, after entering the winter,association work and the like was handled until January of the next year at a rented part of an off-campus Tenrikyō
天理教 church relatively close to the department office. Necessary materials related to the association, the Journalof Religious Studies, and so on were moved there. In this year, the journal published its two-hundredth issue and ran
an editorial retrospective and survey of the field overseas. 20
In response to the continued appearance of religions without religious characteristics in techno-industrial society
in recent years, in 1977 at the thirty-sixth conference at Aichi Gakuin University, a symposium was held entitled“Reconsidering the Concept of Religion” (Shūkyō gainen no saikō 宗教概念の再考).
The lack of sociology of religion, a previously-raised problem, gradually was addressed, and JARS members
from that area came to participate in the International Society for the Sociology of Religion. This subdividing of andcooperation between specializations is a new trend in the religious studies community.
8. JARS’s Relationship with Other Domestic Academic Associations
The Council of Nine Learned Societies
As mentioned in Section 4, the first organization JARS joined after the war ended was the academic association
federation Gakkai Rengō. At the time, it was comprised of six academic associations: the Sociological Society(Shakai Gakkai 社会学会), Society of Ethnology (民族学会), Archaeological Association (Kōko Gakkai 考古学会), Anthropological Society (Jinrui Gakkai 人類学会), Folklore Society (Minkan Denshō no Kai 民間伝承の会),
and the Linguistic Society (Gengo Gakkai 言語学会). After the Association of Japanese Geographers (Nihon Chiri
Gakkai 日本地理学会) and JARS joined, it became the Council of Eight Learned Societies, and then the Council ofNine Learned Societies after the Japanese Psychological Association (Nihon Shinri Gakkai 日本心理学会) joined.
While the Eastern Music Association (Tōyō Ongaku Gakkai 東洋音楽学会) then joined and brought the total to ten,its name has remained the same up through today. However, with the Archaeological Association having left, it is
now comprised of nine associations. Each member association takes turns serving as coordinator for one year. The
coordinating association decides on a joint research topic and holds a conference with presentations on the topic.
Sometimes, joint surveys are carried out in parallel. Like other associations, JARS members serve as officers, present

20 The prewar Journal of Religious Studies continued to be released while changing its guise several time in response to publishingconditions. Consecutive issue numbering was included in journal issues beginning with issue no. 121, the journal’s first publication after
the war. While the preceding issues (consecutive nos. 1 to 120) included in a table listing published Journal of Religious Studies issues(Shūkyō kenkyū no. 200: 30–) were inferred based on a survey of materials at the time of the table’s creation, a subsequent survey
revealed that there was an error in the part, which includes Religious Studies Bulletin, spanning from year 4’s issue 16 to quarterly year
1’s issue 1 (non-consecutive issue numbering). 121 was probably arrived after the confirmation of the existence of year 5’s issues 17
and 18 (1923; non-consecutive issue numbering), which are listed the table of past issues in issue no. 221 (consecutive issue numbering;
page 3–), and the addition of the special issues of the journal (Shūkyō kenkyū tokushūgō 宗教研究特輯号/Shūkyō kenkyū rinji tokushūgō
宗教研究臨時特輯号) found between new series issue nos. 3 and 4; volume 7’s issue 6 and volume 8’s issue 1; and volume 7’s issue 6
and volume 9’s issue 1 (non-consecutive issue numbering). This was how the authors handled the Religion Research Association, which
published Journal of Religious Studies, and JARS’s conferences existing separately during this time.

14

yearly at conferences, and actively participate in surveys. The fruits of the year’s research are brought together in thejournal Anthropological Sciences (Jinrui kagaku 人類科学), and sometimes survey findings are published separately.
Union of Japanese Societies of Literature, Philosophy and History
JARS joined the Union of Japanese Societies of Literature, Philosophy and History (Bungaku, Tetsugaku,
Shigaku Rengō 文学・哲学・史学連合; also referred to as Tetsushibun 哲史文) in 1951. Affiliated academic
associations would have one or two of its members serving as officers at any given time. Each would recommend
two outstanding articles published by their members in journals, and the union would then publish a collection ofthese papers. At the request of the union, JARS published Bibliography for the Study of Religion (Shūkyō kankei
bunken mokuroku 宗教関係文献目録) in 1955. The union continued to be active until around 1959.
9. The Anesaki Memorial Award and Japanese Association for Religious Studies Award
In 1955, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the JARS’s founding, the Anesaki Memorial Award (Anesaki kinenshō
姉崎記念賞) was established to commemorate the association’s first president Anesaki Masaharu and recognize
outstanding publications released in the past two years by association members, particularly younger ones (under
forty years old). Every year, recipients would be provided with a monetary award, and a selection committee wasappointed for this purpose. The first prize ceremony was held at the members’ general assembly of the sixteenth
conference in the following year.
In 1964, with new money from the Kishimoto Fund available, the Anesaki Memorial Award was discontinued
after its tenth presentation, and it was replaced with the Japanese Association for Religious Studies Award (Nihon
Shūkyō Gakkai shō 日本宗教学会賞) in the next academic year. This award is still given today.
10. Closing Remarks
Above, we traced the broad outlines of JARS’s journey from around the time of its founding to the present.
Looking back on these fifty years, we are reminded of predecessors’ great deal of laborious work that constructed
the association as we know it today. During this time, there were both crises and moments of glory. The association
just continuing its activities up through the present, overcoming these large and small vicissitudes, was certainly noeasy task.
However, we cannot, of course, contentedly rest on the laurels of this history. Therein are various of issues thatmust be solved. Allow us to touch on just one. As readers can probably tell from the association news columns inrecent Journal of Religious Studies issues, member numbers have been steadily increasing in recent years. It goes
without saying that increases in people in the field should be heartily welcomed; “to advance and promote religious
studies” is one of this association’s major aims (Article 3 of the current JARS bylaws). However, ironically andunfortunately, it is a fact that the advancement and promotion of religious studies leads to outcomes that do notnecessarily fit with this same Article 3’s listed aim of facilitating “research-related communication.” For the time
being, we will put to the side the increase in clerical work that comes from the organization’s increased size. More
important is, for example, the tendency for increases in conference presenters to increase sessions, which spurs
disunity within the association. In short, there is no small danger of losing sight of JARS’s proper role as a shared15

setting in which people can talk together as students of religious studies.
Of course, efforts have been made to curb this tendency. Examples include the symposium on methods inreligious studies at the twenty-fifth conference in 1966 (Toyo University; Shūkyō kenkyū no. 191), and the symposium
on reconsidering the concept of religion at the thirty-sixth conference in 1977 (Aichi Gakuin University). Of course,such efforts should continue. However, that alone is inadequate. More fundamental is each member themself again
reviewing the basic principle that, as we first stated, academic associations are supposed to serve as shared settings
in which people can talk together. Is not this fiftieth anniversary a good opportunity to do so?

16Memories of Academic Conferences1
The Report of a Certain Unfit President 2Ōhata Kiyoshi 大畠清The holding of the Ninth International Congress for the History of Religions (ICHR) of the International
Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) in August 1958 was an unparalleled success. This was entirely the
result of the efforts of the late Professor Kishimoto Hideo 岸本英夫. Also, we cannot forget that another hidden
contributor to its success was Professor Ishizu Teruji 石津照璽, at the time the president of the Japanese Association
for Religious Studies (JARS), who had almost entirely settled into robotization. In other words, he allowed his
abilities to be used as Professor Kishimoto saw fit and operated per Professor Kishimoto’s instructions. (This is basedon me having witnessed the pronounced emotional degradation between these two outstanding individuals fromaround the time Professor Ishizu came to think of himself as a contender for the position of JARS’s “president.”)
At any rate, the Ninth International Congress for the History of Religions in Japan was from beginning to end
an unprecedented success, and the foreign scholars that I subsequently met all unanimously praised the organizational
abilities of Japanese people. While my knowledge on the subject is limited, was it not the case that there was no
subsequent ICHR organized so excellently in any country? Again, this was entirely thanks to the efforts of Professor
Kishimoto Hideo.
In March 1977, the History of Religions Research Liaison Council (Shūkyōshigaku Kenkyū Renraku Iinkai 宗教史学研究連絡委員会) of the Science Council of Japan (Nihon Gakujutsu Kaigi 日本学術会議) released an
overview of the IAHR’s activities, entitled “Katsudō yōran” 活動要覧, in my name. I was the liaison council’s headat the time.
Page 14, line 17 to page 15, line 1 of this pamphlet’s section “3. Relationship with Japan, 3.2 After World War
II, Particularly the Ninth International Congress for the History of Religions (Tokyo/Kyoto)” was as follows:
At the members’ general assembly of the Japanese Association for Religious Studies’s eleventh conference
held the month before the IASHR’s first Executive Committee meeting Amsterdam in November 1951, it was
decided to establish a committee to examine the holding of the international congress in Japan.
After IASHR’s second Executive Committee meeting was held in Paris in May 1953, at the thirteenth JARS
conference in October of the same year, it was reported to the IASHR Promotion Committee that Japan’s bid tohost the international congress would be submitted to the 1955 international congress in Rome, a result of
negotiations between JARS’s president Kishimoto Hideo, on the one hand, and IASHR’s president [Raffaele]

1 Editor’s note: These “Memories” are less-formal essays that were attached to the article. Although the implicit purpose of Ōhata’sreport is to defend himself by attesting that he played an important role in hosting the ninth ICHR, we decided to have it translated andpublished because it clearly states who first came up with the idea of bringing an ICHR to Japan and who supported it. In retrospect, atleast in the eyes of Japanese scholars who were born after WWII, it is a source of wonder that JARS could decide to hold such a large
international congress just several years after the war.
2 Ōhata Kiyoshi (1904–1983) was a historian of ancient Judaism. He taught at the University of Tokyo from 1936 to 1965.

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Pettazzoni and secretary general [Claas J.] Bleeker, on the other.
This pamphlet was written by someone and therefore involved researching various sources, but I actually haveno memory at all of what is written above. Tracing that which has stayed in my memory and is related to what isquoted above, I come up with the following.
I heard that Professor Furuno Kiyoto 古野清人 3 , who attended the seventh ICHR in Amsterdam, spoke
frequently and with vigor of holding ICHR in Japan. Inspired by his assertion and being someone with an inborntendency to be somewhat unreflectively hasty, I immediately jumped at the opportunity. I quickly launched an ICHR
promotion committee and requested that Professor Takagai Shunshi 鷹谷俊之, one of the elder members of JARS at
the time, serve as its head. Also, asking the Science Council of Japan for help, I dispatched Professor Miyamoto
Shōson 宮本正尊 and Professor Kan Enkichi 菅円吉, both members of JARS’s Board of Directors, to the eighth
ICHR in Rome. This was in 1955. Due to the vigorous efforts of Professor Miyamoto and Professor Kan, it was
decided that the ninth international congress—not a regional conference—would be held in 1958 in Japan. This was,of course, approved at both JARS’s Board of Directors meeting and general assembly.
As the president, I sent a signed invitation, dated 10 June 1956, to University of Rome’s Professor Pettazzoni,
who was the IAHR president, University of Amsterdam’s Professor Bleeker, who was the IAHR secretary general,and other scholars. I still remember this well because from then onwards I began signing my name as “Ohata” insteadof “Obatake.”4
However, being someone who has almost no ability to create an organization, no matter how much I hurried,
there was no way that large stage like an international congress was going to get moving. So, particularly due to the
expectation that there would be few participants from outside the country, at the proposal of Professor Kishimoto
Hideo, it was decided, probably at an ICHR Promotion Committee meeting, that all previous preparatory work forthe international congress was going to be put aside and activities to bring it to Japan would begin anew, and I steppedaway from the ICHR issue.
As a result, the ninth ICHR in Japan was, as I previously stated, an unprecedented success. I will say it again:
this success was entirely due to the efforts of Professor Kishimoto Hideo.
IAHR should be translated as “Kokusai Shūkyōshi Gakkai” 国際宗教史学会 and ICHR as “Shūkyōshi Kokusai
Kaigi” 宗教史国際会議. However, it was then decided that the term for “religious studies” (shūkyōgaku 宗教学)
would be added to these translations in light of the actual research carried out by participants, resulting in Kokusai
Shūkyōgaku Shūkyōshi Gakkai 国際宗教学宗教史学会 and Kokusai Shūkyōgaku Shūkyōshi Kaigi 国際宗教学宗
教史会議. My memory leads me to believe that this was probably based on the opinions of Professor Furuno Kiyoto
and maybe those around him.
With regard to inviting ICHR to Japan as described above, at the same time as celebrating Professor Kishimotoand Professor Ishizu making the ninth ICHR a success, I also cannot but feel somehow heartwarmed thinking that3 Editor’s note: Furuno was a sociologist/anthropologist of religion who translated Émile Durkheim’s Les formes élémentaires de la vie

religieuse.
4 Translator’s note: The characters 大畠 can be read as both Ōhata and Ōbatake.

18

during my term as―a quite incapable―president, the following happened. First, it was decided in 1955 at the Romecongress―thanks to the extraordinary efforts of Professor Miyamoto Shōson and Professor Kan Enkichi, who had
been dispatched there―that the “ninth” ICHR would be held in Japan in 1958. Second, on an international level,
communication, negotiations, and friendships subsequently continued with President Pettazzoni and Secretary
General Bleeker. Third, on a domestic level, for all intents and purposes, my wishes were carried on, titles aside,even after my downfall (for example, Toda Yoshio 戸田義雄, Akashi Michio 赤司道雄, and Wakimoto Tsuneya 脇
本平也 became central to the ninth ICHR’s operations, as I had thought should be the case).
(This was a long time ago, so please correct me if anything is mistaken in my memory. Fortunately, ICHRrelated documents from when I was president are preserved at hand, and I would be quite delighted if readers referto them as well. 31 July 1980)

Memories of the 12th Stockholm International Congress for the History of Religions
Takeuchi Yoshinori 武内義範 5
With the trip from Hamburg ending up being much later than planned, I arrived at the Stockholm airport. It wasprobably already past eight o’clock at night. However, in this country, the brilliant sun still was blazing, and excluding
the long shadows it cast, it was as bright as three or four o’clock in the afternoon. From the airport to the transportation
hub in the city was a long journey of only forest and fields with few houses. My travel guide said that [Edvard]
Grieg’s music does a good job capturing Northern Europe’s scenery. I am not familiar with things musical. However,going past the primeval forests infinitely extending to the far north and the lakes scattered therein, I thought to myselfthat if anything can express the sound of the wind that scatters things in its path as it blows through the highland-likefields, as well as the pleasantly refreshing feeling and great quiescence of the vast space that extends above these
forests, lakes, and fields, it is probably music.
The Twelfth International Congress for the History of Religions began the following day (15 August 1970). In
his greetings, G[eo] Widengren said that the congress is an opportunity for scholars to enjoy each other’scompanionship, and not a place for research, something that requires a great deal of time and should be carried out
by individuals at universities’ research rooms and in their own studies. Widengren is a major scholar of thephenomenology of religion today. One of his most famous works is Religionsphänomenologie (1969). He also has
published research on ancient Iranian religions, such as the monumental work Die Religionen Irans (1965). His above
words of greeting were quite characteristic of a theorist like himself. While listening to them, I felt jealous of theresearchers from foreign countries that could participate in an international conference with the casual feeling of a

5 Editor’s note: Takeuchi Yoshinori (1913–2002) was a philosopher of religion. He taught at Kyoto University from 1948 to 1976.

Among the so-called Kyoto School philosophers of religion, Takeuchi had an exceptionally wide interest in history of religions. Oneof his students, Oda Yoshiko 小田淑子, recalls that in the early 1970s Takeuchi discussed Widengren and the Upsala School in an
overview lecture on the study of religion. See S. Fujiwara, D. Thurfjell & S. Engler eds., Global Phenomenologies of Religion: An
Oral History in Interviews (Sheffield: Equinox, 2021), p. 134. This essay shows that his interest in the Upsala School stemmed fromhis in-person interactions with historians of religions from the Nordic region at the Stockholm Congress of the IAHR.

19

domestic conference. It seems that scholars from America do not have much difficulty getting permission from their
universities or research institutes to attend as long as they prepare a research paper.
I felt this more and more as I went around listening to research presentations with the University of Chicago’s
Professor [Joseph] Kitagawa and [Mircea] Eliade-sensei at their invitation. In other words, they aimed to listen to theresearch presentations of young scholars who had graduated from the University of Chicago. This was just like how
at domestic conferences, if there is a young presenter from your research office, you end up listening to theirpresentation even if there are other presentations in which you are interested.
Perhaps due to the many Northern European scholars, many people were presenting in German at thephenomenology of religion session and elsewhere. As for presentations related to Japanese Buddhism, Professor Fritz
Buri from Switzerland’s University of Basel gave an interesting presentation comparing Paul, Luther, and Shinran
親 鸞 . Also, Sophia University’s Professor [Heinrich] Dumoulin, noting that Buddhism, particularly Zen 禅 ,frequently emphasizes a standpoint rejecting of individual personalities (“kill the Buddha and the patriarchs”),
emphasized that in reality, it does reify individual personalities in some ways: people’s adoration of the [Sōtō 曹洞
sect] founder Dōgen 道元 turned into the custom of waiting on him as if he is still alive.
The bookstores that had set up shop at the congress were greatly beneficial to me. There were many
phenomenology of religion-related books on display, which were very useful for my subsequent research. I did feela little timid buying up a bunch of books there―quite like someone from the countryside. I was also happy to meetscholars from Germany and America with whom I was already acquainted. This conference led to a friendship with
Sophia University Professor T[homas] Immoos. However, it is unfortunate that Professor Maeda Gorō 前田護郎,
who attended with me, has passed away.
Participating in the Stockholm conference subsequently greatly stimulated my interest in Northern Europe’s
fields of religious studies and the philosophy of religion. While I had known that A[nders] Nygren, who is alreadywell-known in our country for his famous works Eros och agape and Romarbrevet, and M[artin P.] Nilsson, an
authority on the history of Greek religions, were Lund University Professors, I only was able to learn in detail later
about the development at Uppsala University and scholarship of the myth and ritual school. I had met Uppsala
University Professor C[arl-]M[artin] Edsman at a conference in Kyoto after being introduced to him by Professor
Ueda Shizuteru 上田閑照, and, having plans to go to Uppsala University as part of a conference trip on 20 August,
we promised to talk at leisure. However, on the day of, I wasn’t feeling well, and in the end was unable to go. Laterin an explanation about the Uppsala school I found out that he was doing good work, and regretted not being able to.
Widengren is also receiving attention in this area. Today, in terms of their content, the phenomenology ofreligion and the morphology of religion are deeply involved in issues addressed by this school. In the future, thisschool, structuralism, and issues raised by [Georges] Dumézil will probably create three-way debates that form a newvortex in the field of mythology. As shown by M[artin] Noth, [Rudolf] Bultmann’s demythologization must be
thought of not in terms of the three-story Babylonian cosmology of which he speaks but from that which is closer tothe core of myths, like the mythical and ritual background of the “Suffering Servant.”

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Japanese Association for Religious Studies Awards 1(1966–)
1966 Academic Year (1st)

Ueda Shizuteru 上田閑照, Die Gottesgeburt in der Seele und der Durchbruch zur Gottheit (Gütersloher
Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1965).

Tsukamoto Keishō 塚本啓祥, Shoki bukkyō kyōdanshi no kenkyū 初期仏教教団史の研究 [Research on thehistory of the early Buddhist Sangha] (Sankibō Busshorin, 1966).

Judges: Ariga Tetsutarō 有賀鉄太郎, Ishizu Teruji 石津照璽, Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆, Hirakawa Akira 平川彰, Hori Ichirō 堀一郎, Nomura Nobukiyo 野村暢清, Wakimoto Tsuneya 脇本平也
1967 Academic Year (2nd)Miyake Hitoshi 宮家準, “Shugendō ni okeru chōfuku no ronri” 修験道における調伏の論理 [The logic ofsubjugation in shūgendō], Keiō Daigaku Daigakuin Shakaigaku Kenkyūka kiyō 慶応大学大学院社会学研究科紀要 [Keio University Graduate School of Human Relations bulletin] no. 6; and other articles on shugendō
修験道.

Judges: Ueda Yoshifumi 上田義文, Ōhata Kiyoshi 大畠清, Nakagawa Hideyasu 中川秀恭, Nomura Nobukiyo,
Hoshino Genpō 星野元豊, Marukawa Hitoo 丸川仁夫, Yanagawa Keiichi 柳川啓一
1968 Academic Year (3rd)Hara Minoru 原実, “Kai” 灰 [Ashes], in Tōdai Bungakubu kenkyū hōkoku tetsugaku ronbunshū 東大文学部研究報告哲学論文集 [Research report of the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Letters: Philosophy paper
collection].

Judges: Abe Masao 阿部正雄, Ōhata Kiyoshi, Nakgawa Hideyasu, Nagao Gajin 長尾雅人, Nishitsunoi Masayoshi
西角井正慶, Hoshino Genpō, Marukawa Hitoo
1969 Academic Year (4th)Tagawa Kenzō 田川建三, Genshi kirisutokyō-shi no ichidanmen 原始キリスト教史の一断面 [A crosssection of the history of early Christianity] (Keisō Shobō).
Reason For Selection: This book is a further developed version of the dissertation that the author submitted
five years ago to Strasbourg University. From a redaction criticism perspective, the author aims to examine
the position of the Gospel of Mark, which came into existence the earliest out of the synoptic Gospels, inthe history of early Christianity. Form criticism, the result of the pronounced development of New
Testament scholarship in the first half of this century, has elucidated the stage of fragmentary oral
traditions that preceded the two Gospel texts of Mark and Q in connection with the situation of the religiousorganization[s] that formed and transmitted these traditions. Emphasizing the “echt” in sources, this form

21

criticism has tended to neglect the redacted phrases/passages of Gospel authors. However, redaction
criticism closely analyzes these and thereby clarifies how Gospel authors redacted fragmented traditions,each of which originally had their own meanings, and what they were trying to assert by doing so.
Applying this new redaction criticism method that has been receiving focus for the past ten-plus years to
the Gospel of Mark, the author develops a unique understanding. In other words, he shows that Mark’s
spiritual climate was Galilee; on the other hand, that Mark attempted to critically stand off against
Jerusalem (the center of orthodox Judaism), Jesus’s twelve disciples, and the Jerusalem church; and,relatedly, that Mark critically discussed the lack of understanding regarding Jesus of Jerusalem church“disciples.” According to the author, Mark saw Jesus not from the messianistic/apocalyptic literature
perspective characteristic of both Judaism at the time and the Jerusalem church. Rather, he saw not only
the gospel that appears in Jesus’s teachings and miracles but also Jesus’s life and existence itself assurprising and fear-inducing events. This view of Jesus―or, in other terms, Mark’s aim as someone who
was, by believing and following the gospel, attempting himself to participate in the historical life of Jesus
who walked alongside the people of Galilee―turned him into a Gospel “redactor” and the creator of thecompletely new type of literature called “the Gospels.”
This research of the author is deeply significant in terms of history of religion methods as well. It does
not simply contextualize religious traditions in their temporal and spatial backgrounds. Rather, thisresearch goes further by highlighting the spiritual climate, the “situation,” in which traditions become
involved with their transmitters on an existential level. Even greater is the author’s accomplishment ofmethodologically making clear the potential of religious intellectual history in the sphere of New
Testament studies.
This is why we recommend this work as the most fitting for the 1969 academic year Japanese
Association for Religious Studies Award.
Judges: Kusunoki Masahiro 楠正弘, Tachi Kidō 館煕道, Nagao Ganjin, Nishitsunoi Masayoshi, Furuta Shōkin 古
田紹欽, Mutō Kazuo 武藤一雄, Wakimoto Tsuneya
1970 Academic Year (5th)Matsumoto Shigeru 松本滋, Motoori Norinaga, 1730–1801 (Harvard University Press, 1970).
Reason for Selection: This book is based on the author’s dissertation submitted to Harvard University in
1967, by which he obtained his doctoral degree. While it is therefore written in English, its content raises
new issues for Motoori Norinaga 本居宣長 research in Japan as well. While it goes without saying thatin the country there is an abundance of scholarship on Norinaga, this book does not simply go throughand introduce this research. While, of course, deeply learning from this research, it also shines a light on
Norinaga from a new perspective and attempts to freshly analyze and understand him.
Methodologically speaking, this book has two theoretical pillars supporting it as a whole. One can beseen in its attempt, under the influence of Professor Robert Bellah, to explore the value system underlying
Japanese culture.
Another is its attempt to introduce Professor Erik Erikson’s theory of identity and trace Norinaga’s

22personality formation process.
In other words, this book is both an effort to reconstruct the inner journey of Norinaga as he inquired
into his true self, as well as an elucidation of how his thought that was thereby formed is entangled withthe foundational value system of Japanese culture.
While it goes without saying that there are points to be criticized from the perspective of the long
tradition of Norinaga scholarship, we think that this book can be highly commended for learning fromnew developments in religious studies, attempting bold interpretations, and opening up a new sphere in
Norinaga research. These are the reasons that we recommend this work as fitting for the 1970 academic
year Japanese Association for Religious Studies Award.
Judges: Anzu Motohiko 安津素彦, Uno Mitsuo 宇野光雄, Kusunoki Masahiro, Hirakawa Akira, Furuta Shōkin,Mutō Kazuo, Wakimoto Tsuneya
1971 Academic Year (6th)Ogawa Ichijō 小川一乗, Indo daijō bukkyō ni okeru nyoraizō, busshō no kenkyū: Daruma Rinchen-zō hōshōron
shakusho no kaidoku 如来蔵・仏性の研究―ダルマリンチェン造宝性論釈疏の解読―[Research on
tathāgata-garba and buddha-nature: A deciphering of Dharma Rinchen’s Commentary on the
Ratnagotravibhāga] (Bun’eidō).
Reason for Selection: This book’s research deciphers Dharma Rinchen’s Commentary on the
Ratnagotravibhāga and uses this text to discuss the tathāgata-garba/buddha-nature ideas that form thecore thought of the Ratnagotravibhāga. It is comprised of two sections: one containing research based ona deciphering of Dharma Rinchen’s commentary, and one that situates tathāgata-garba/buddha-nature
thought in the development of Mahayana Buddhism.
Much outstanding research has appeared on the Ratnagotravibhāga. [Edward Hamilton] Johnston
has published its original Sanskrit, and scholars of the East and West have researched it. From an earlystage, they have recognized and highlighted that Dharma Rinchen’s commentary is an important one forresearch on the Ratnagotravibhāga. However, this is the first book to decipher its Tibetan text and engage
in substantial research on it. It is an outstanding study that opens up a new field in Ratnagotravibhāga
research and greatly contributes to the academic community.
This book precisely deciphers the difficult Tibetan text, as well as extensively uses the Sanskrit
original and materials translated into Chinese. This is an extremely sound research method. In terms ofcontent, the author’s primary task is elucidating tathāta-garba/buddha-nature thought. He engages in
research while carefully referring to scholars’ existing findings, putting to use his deciphering of Dharma
Rinchen’s commentary, and drawing from an abundant set of materials. Therefore, it is an outstanding
accomplishment that goes beyond existing research on these ideas. Furthermore, this book traces theseideas in the broad development of Mahayana Buddhist thought and makes clear their relationship withprajna emptiness thought. This is another one of this book’s outstanding achievements. It has made theconsiderable achievement of contributing to research on both the Ratnagotravibhāga and Mahayana
Buddhism.

23



Miyata Noboru 宮田 登, Miroku shinkō no kenkyū: Nihon ni okeru dentōteki meshiakan ミロク信仰の研究—
日本における伝統的メシア観— [Research on Miroku religious belief and practice in Japan: A traditionalview of a messiah in Japan] (Miraisha).
Reason for selection: Miroku (Skt. Maitreya) religious belief and practice holds that this world will
become Miroku’s world of bliss after he appears and relieves sentient beings of their suffering. From afolklore perspective, this book researches how it unfolded in Japan. With careful attention, the author uses
materials from surveys and (primarily early modern) texts to investigate how it has been continually
carried on by the masses, and demonstrates that religious beliefs and practices that at first glance appear
to be unconnected―such as Kashima dance (Kashima odori 鹿島踊), Hotei 布袋 religious belief andpractice, the legend of Kōbō Daishi’s 弘法大師 perpetual samādhi, and Mt. Fuji confraternities (kō講)―are commonly undergirded by a faith that eagerly awaits the “world of Miroku.”
Moreover, the author holds that the expression “In the world of Miroku, no one knows work, so
people wait to eat the great number of fruits that fall from tree branches” is indicative of
utopian/millenarian thought that sees Miroku as a messiah. This type of thought is a rarity in Japan. This
leads him to consider views of world-renewal (yonaoshi 世直し). In conclusion, though, he argues thatin Japan, this earnest expectation for Miroku’s world explodes for short periods and then, instead ofturning into permanent messianic thought, is incorporated into seasonal agricultural ritual. Here, he
identifies a characteristic of Japanese people’s religious thought.
While there are points that are still unclear―research on the doctrinal history of Miroku religious
belief and practice, changes accompanying its transmission from India to China and then Japan, and soon―we can highly praise this book as a painstaking work that boldly investigates issues in the history of
popular Buddhism from a folklore perspective and also zeroes in on more general religious studies issues.
We recommend this work for the 1971 academic year Japanese Association for Religious Studies Awardfor the above reasons.

Judges: Anzu Motohiko, Ihara Shōren 伊原照蓮, Ueda Shizuteru, Uno Mitsuo, Sakamoto Hiroshi 坂本弘, Hirakawa
Akira, Yanagawa Keiichi
1972 Academic Year (7th)Suzuki Norihisa 鈴木範久, Kurata Hyakuzō: Kindai Nihonjin to shūkyō 倉田百三―近代日本人と宗教[Kurata Hyakuzō: Modern Japanese people and religion] (Taimeidō).
Reason for Selection: This book is a critical biography of the literary figure Kurata Hyakuzō 倉田百三
(1891–1943), who was active from the Taishō period (1912–1926) to the mid-Shōwa period (1926–1989).
Focusing on Kurata’s diverse experience with religions that included Christianity, Buddhism, newreligions, and Japanism (Nihonshugi 日本主義), it adopts a religious studies perspective to examine his
religious thought.
While existing scholarship on Kurata has been limited to the time up through his twenties, when hewrote bestsellers such as The Beginnings of Love and Understanding (Ai to ninshiki to no shuppatsu 愛

24

と認識との出発) and The Priest and His Disciples (Shukke to sono deshi 出家とその弟子), Suzuki
carefully tracks his whole life, from his birth until his unfortunate death. Suzuki divides Kurata’s life into
three periods: self-awakening and the affirmation of life, the rejection of life, and, finally, his arrival at
the standpoint of the identity of affirmation and rejection. While this kind of intellectual history
assessment of Kurata has various issues, this author is the first one to attempt it.
Another major characteristic of this book is that it is based on a thorough survey of sources. It
uncovers new facts and corrects errors by not only examining differences between editions of Kurata’s
books and bring together even fragments of his writings but also engaging in fieldwork in his birthplaceof Miyoshi and interviewing surviving family members and connected individuals. This book’s sources
are valuable to the extent that it must also be used by Kurata scholars from the field of Japanese literature.
Drawing general conclusions from the issues this book treats―alluded to by its subtitle “Modern
Japanese People and Religion”―is a task that the author Suzuki will probably take on in the future; he isstill refraining from offering anything definitive. However, it can be greatly praised as a biography that
outstandingly depicts a life that assumed the typical Japanese pattern of a “seeker” (kyūdōsha/gudōsha 求
道者).
Demura Akira 出村彰, Suisu shūkyō kaikaku-shi kenkyū スイス宗教改革史研究 [Research on the history of
the Reformation in Switzerland] (Nihon Kirisutokyō-dan Shuppankyoku).
Reason for Selection: This book is historical and textual research on the religious reformation that
occurred in Switzerland during the sixteenth century. While keeping in mind the entirety of the major
world event that was the Reformation, it turns to [John] Calvin in Geneva and [Johannes] Oecolampadiusin Basel, investigates the backgrounds of these two areas as well as France’s Strasbourg (Calvin’s placeof exile), and takes on many topics. These topics include the Church and the state, the intellectual
backgrounds of Church-state relationships, as well as the Reformed Church’s education, regulations, andresponses to political power. The author, who is adept in Latin in addition to, of course, English, German,
and French, not only has closely surveyed sources and opened up a new field in this area for Japan but
also brings together his research in a way that will also be applauded by experts in Europe and North
America. While this book is the author’s dissertation submitted to Princeton University, it is written
clearly in a way that will be useful for readers in Japan. The sixty pages of notes and twenty-pagebibliography are very academically stimulating.

Judges: Iihara Shōren 伊原照蓮, Ueda Shizuteru, Sakamoto Hiroshi, Hatano Hakuyū 羽田野伯猷, Hori Ichirō,
Maeda Gorō 前田護郎, Yanagawa Keiichi
1973 Academic Year (8th)Fujii Masao 藤井正雄, “Bukkyō girei no kōzō hikaku” 仏教儀礼の構造比較 [Structural comparisons of
Buddhist rituals], in Jōdokyō: Sono dentō to sōzō 浄土教―その伝統と創造― [Pure Land teachings: Their
tradition and creation]; etc.
Reason for Selection: Fujii Masao specializes the anthropology of religion. This painstakingly written

25

work is an attempt at comparative research on Japan’s Buddhist ritual structures and each denomination’s
rituals that draws from anthropological ritual interpretation.
Using the term “ritual motif,” Fujii holds that many Japanese Buddhist denominations’ rituals can beinterpreted based on a “greeting the buddha/bodhisattva (bujō 奉 請 )” and “sending off thebuddha/bodhisattva (busō 奉送)” pattern. While his discussions extend to these rituals’ relationship withJapan’s folk religious beliefs and practices, as well as the correlations between ritual differences anddoctrinal differences in the Tendai 天台, Shingon 真言, and Jōdo 浄土 sects, the core of this article isresearch on the structure of the Bon segaki-e 盆施餓鬼会.
First, he roughly divides Buddhist rituals into two types: rituals for oneself (taiji girei 対自儀礼; “forthe development of one’s own religious beliefs and one’s purification”) and rituals for others (taita girei
対他儀礼; “prayers [kaji 加持/kitō 祈祷] and merit transference carried out by priests at others’
requests”). The author states that the segaki switched from being a ritual for oneself to a ritual for others:
it was originally the segaki-hō 施餓鬼法 in which offerings are made to hungry spirits, but then turned
into the segaki-e, a frequently performed ritual in which, at the request of the patron, offerings are madeboth to a deceased individual connected to the patron, as well as to hungry ghosts. The author examines
this while comparing the segaki rituals of the Tendai, Shingon Buzan 真 言 宗 豊 山 , and Jōdo
denominations. While there are differences between denominations, this shift has tended to lead to the
combining of urabon-e 盂蘭盆会 and segaki.
These views complement and amend the great amount of folklore research on Bon rites as folkways.
While in folklore studies, the “little tradition” is emphasized in order to make claims about the uniquenessof Japan’s Bon festival, this book considers Bon rites from the perspective of the “great tradition” of thosecarrying out rituals. The author has dug into a new area that is still not adequately developed.
Fujii primarily uses the forms of currently-practiced Buddhist rituals as material, and he needs todeepen his historical research further. Also, in order to turn the categories of “rituals for oneself” and“rituals for others” into a general theory of ritual, further theorization is desirable. However, this is soundresearch that considers difficult, complicated, and highly symbolic Buddhist rituals across denominations
and contributes much to a religious studies understanding of ritual. It is thus appropriate for the
association’s award.
Also, the article he submitted for our reference is a good one that objectively investigates views ofworldly benefits (genze riyaku 現世利益) in Buddhism based on Buddhist scriptures.
Judges: Anzai Shin 安斉伸, Kubo Noritada 窪徳忠, Nieda Rokusaburō 仁戸田六三郎, Hatano Hakuyū, Hori Ichirō,
Maeda Gorō, Yūkī Reimon 結城令聞
1974 Academic Year (9th)NoneJudges: Akashi Michio, Anzai Shin, Ishida Mitsuyuki 石田充之, Kubo Noritada, Toda Yoshio 戸田義雄, Nieda
Rokusaburō, Yūki Reimon

26

1975 Academic Year (10th)Tsuda Shin’ichi 津田真一, The Saṁvarodaya-tantra: Selected Chapters (Hokuseido Press, 1974)
Reason for Selection: This is valuable research on esoteric/tantric Buddhism. The translation from the
Sanskrit original is outstanding, and it will receive worldwide praise. We therefore recommended it.

Nakamura Kōjirō 中村廣治郎, Ghazali on Prayer (Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo, 1973);“Gazāri kenkyū to sono mondaiten” ガザーリ研究とその問題点 [Ghazali research and issues therein] (1),Tōyō Bunka Kenkyūsho kiyō 東洋文化研究所紀要 [Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia bulletin] no. 67.
Reason for Selection: We recommended this translation of Ghazali’s ideas on prayer in Islam and theauthor’s subsequent research particularly because they open up a new area in research.

Judges: Akashi Michio, Abe Shigeo 阿部重夫, Ikeda Suetoshi 池田末利, Ishida Mitsuyuki, Ueda Shigeo 植田重雄,
Undō Gidō 雲藤義道, Toda Yoshio
1976 Academic Year (11th)

Sonoda Minoru 薗田稔, “The Traditional Festival in Urban Society,” Kokugakuin Daigaku Nihon Bunka
Kenkyūsho kiyō 国学院大学日本文化研究所紀要[Kokugakuin University Institute for Japanese Culture

and Classics bulletin] no. 35; etc.
Reason for Selection: Research on festivals has used the following two methods: (1) collecting anddescribing detailed data based on fieldwork and (2) tracing festival histories using texts and the like. In
contrast, while based on materials from thorough surveys, Sonoda’s research does not simply stop at thatlevel but goes further to analyze the structures and functions of festivals, attempt a schematization of
festival spaces, and elucidate their symbolic nature. This article and his other related research on festivals
are quite praiseworthy for opening up a new area in research on festivals as one type of religious event.


Tsuchiya Hiroshi 土屋博, “Iesu seitan monogatari ni okeru rekishi to kyokō” イエス生誕物語における歴史と虚構 [History and fiction in the birth story of Jesus], Hokkaidō Daigaku bungakubu kiyō 北海道大学文学部 [Bulletin of the School of Humanities and Human Sciences of Hokkaido University] no. 23; etc.
Reason for Selection: As is well-known, biblical research methods have gone from form criticism totradition criticism, and then redaction criticism. From an early stage, Tsuchiya applied the redaction
criticism approach to synoptic Gospels analysis, and has a solid track record in research on the likes of theGospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke. This article discusses the relationship between fiction andhistorical fact in religious texts while using Jesus’s birth story as material. It is filled with quite intriguingsuggestions regarding issues not only in biblical studies but also in the interpretation of religious history
source materials in general. Tsuchiya has also released “Ruka fukuinsho mae monogatari (dai 1 shō – dai
2 shō) kenkyū ルカ福音書・前物語（第一章〜第二章）研究, which is based on the methodology
unfurled in this article, and we look forward to his research advancing even further in the future.

Judges: Abe Shigeo, Ikeda Suetoshi, Ueda Shigeo, Undō Gidō, Saki Akio 佐木秋夫, Tamaru Noriyoshi 田丸徳善,
Nakagawa Hideyasu

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1977 Academic Year (12th)None

Judges: Anzu Motohiko, Koyama Chūmaru 小山宙丸, Saki Akio, Tamaki Koshirō 玉城康四郎, Tamura Noriyoshi,
Nakagawa Hideyasu, Sakurai Shūyū 桜井秀雄
1978 Academic Year (13th)

Serikawa Hiromichi 芹川博通, Watanabe Kaigyoku kenkyū: Sono shisō to kōdō 渡辺海旭研究——その思想と行動 [Research on Watanabe Kaigyoku: His thought and actions] (Daitō Shuppansha, March 1978)
Reason for Selection: Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡辺海旭, the subject of this book’s research, left major marks
in Japan’s Buddhist and academic community from the Meiji period (1868–1912) to the early Shōwa period(1926–1989). Also, Kaigyoku interacted to a great degree with Anesaki Masaharu during the first half of
his life. Until now, there has been no research focusing on his thought and actions, despite him having been
involved in the early days of religious studies in Japan. Bringing in new sources (included at the end of thebook) to the existing set of materials on Kaigyoku, the author considers his religious thought, research on
Buddhism, educational activities, social projects, and so on. While due to the multi-sided nature of
Kaigyoku there are points which the analysis does not adequately cover, this book deserves high acclaim
as inventive research on this figure.

Judges: Anzu Motohiko, Gotō Kōichirō 後藤光一郎, Koyama Chūmaru, Sakurai Shūyū, Tamaki Kōshirō, Fujita
Tomio 藤田富雄, Morioka Kiyomi 森岡清美
1979 Academic Year (14th)

Kimura Kiyotaka 木村清孝, Shoki Chūgoku kegon shisō no kenkyū 初期中国華厳思想の研究 [Research on
early Chinese Huayan thought] (Shunjūsha, October 1977).
Reason for Selection: The over six-hundred pages of this voluminous book comprise a holistic study of thedevelopment of Huayan 華厳 thought in China that particularly focuses on the period before Fazang 法蔵,
who is seen as a major contributor to the school. While the author’s phrase “Huayan thought” refers to his
understanding of Huayan doctrinal studies in light of the spiritual and religious climate specific to China,
this book is, of course, not simply research on the Huayan Sutra. Its notable contribution lies in its rigorous
investigation of, amongst other topics, the doctrinal studies of Zhiyan 智儼, who has received little attentionin Huayan scholarship. In his research, the author aimed to consider, in intellectual history terms, elementsfrom the foundational Buddhism of India that then became Chinese Huayan Buddhism. We believe that
overall, this study, which is based on innovative conceptions and unique understandings, has a great deal
to contribute to the academic community.



Shimazono Susumu 島薗進, “Ikigami shisōron: Shin shūkyō ni yoru ‘minzoku’ shūkyō no shiyō nitsuite” 生神思想論―新宗教による〈民俗〉宗教の止揚について” [On thought about living deities: The sublation of‘folk’ religion by new religions], in Gendai shūkyō e no shikaku 現 代 宗 教 へ の 視 角 [Perspectives oncontemporary religions] (Yūzankaku, September 1978); and four other articles.

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Reason for Selection: Shimazono Susumu’s “Ikigami shisōron” and four other articles reject the standard“sudden occurrence theory,” which attempts to explain the establishment of the new religions (shin shūkyō
新宗教) in terms of founders’ possession by a deity. These articles hold that the new religions came into
existence out of folk “religion” after their founders go through a process of internal conflict. From thisstandpoint, Shimazono has convincingly reconstructed the establishment of Tenrikyō 天 理 教 andKonkōkyō 金光教 with unprecedented depth and opened up a new angle for research on the establishmentof the new religions. When doing so, he discusses, amongst other topics, the concept of folk “religion” thatmediates folk religious beliefs/practices and new religions, the routinization of shamanism producing living
deity religious beliefs, sublation from living deity religious beliefs to living deity thought, and the dilutionof living deity thought. The arguments Shimazono presents reflect his originality and, as ambitious attempts
to develop a theory of religious sects specific to our country, make us eager for what is to come.
Judges: Ikado Fujio 井門富二夫 , Uno Mitsuo, Koike Nagayuki 小池 長之 , Sakurai Tokutarō 桜井徳太郎 ,Hashimoto Hōkei 橋本芳契, Fujita Tomio, Morioka Kiyomi
Note: Regrettably, due to inadequate records, we were unable to include the selection reasons for some recipientsof . . . the Japanese Association for Religious Studies Award, particularly early ones.

Translated by Dylan Luers Toda
Edited by Satoko Fujiwara (JARS International Connections Committee)
Published date: Oct 20, 2021
Originally published in Japanese as:“Nihon shūkyō gakkai gojū nen no ayumi”日本宗教学会五十年の歩み [The Fifty-Year Journey of theJapanese Association for Religious Studies]“Gakujutsu taikai no omoide” 学術大会の思い出 [Memories of Academic Conferences]“Shiryo: Anesaki kinenshō, Nihon Shūkyō Gakkai shō”姉崎記念賞・日本宗教学会賞 [Anesaki Memorial
Awards, Japanese Association for Religious Studies Awards]

In Nihon Shükyō Gakkai Goju Nenshi 日本宗教学会五十年史 [Fifty Years’ History of the Japanese Association
for Religious Studies], edited by Nihon shūkyō gakkai gojūsshū nen kinen jigyo iinkai 日本宗教学会五十周年記念事業委員会[Committee on the 50th Anniversary Commemorative Project of the Japanese Association for
Religious Studies], Japanese Association for Religious Studies, 1980.

1 Editor’s note: The Japanese Association for Religious Studies Award program was preceded by the Anesaki Memorial Award from1956 to 1965. As no detailed record is available, I will only list the recipients’ names and the titles and general categories of recipients’works.

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1956: Takagi Hiroo 高木宏夫, “Nihonjin no shūkyō seikatsu no jittai” 日本人の宗教生活の実体 [The actual conditions of thereligious life of Japanese people] (sociology of religion).
1957: Fujita Kōtatsu 藤田宏達, “Genshi bukkyō ni okeru shin no keitai” 原始仏教における信の形態 [The forms of belief inearly Buddhism] (Buddhist textual studies).
1958: Takasaki Jikidō 高崎直道, “Kukyō ichijō hōshōron no kōzō to genkei” 究竟一乗宝性論の構造と原型 [The structure andthe prototype of Ratnagotra-vibhāga-mahāyānottaratantra-śāstra] (Buddhist textual studies).
1958: Fujita Tomio 藤田富雄, Gendai no ishiki: Hēgeru o koeru mono 現代の意識――ヘーゲルを超えるもの [Thecontemporary mind: Beyond Hegel] (philosophy of religion).
1959: Murakami Shigeyoshi 村上重良, Kindai minshū shūkyōshi no kenkyū 近代民衆宗教史の研究 [A study of the modern
history of popular religion] (social history of religion).
1960: Kurahayashi Shōji 倉林正次, Daijōsai no geinō: Seishodō okagura kō 大嘗祭の芸能――清暑堂御神楽考」[Performing
arts in the Daijōsai festival: Considering Seishodō okagura] (Shinto studies, ritual studies).
1961: Matsumae Takeshi 松前健, Nihon shinwa no shin kenkyū 日本神話の新研究 [A new study of Japanese mythology] (mythstudies).
1962: Ikado Fujio 井門富二夫, “Shūkyōshi ni okeru kindaika no mondai” 宗教史における近代化の問題 [Modernization in thehistory of religions] (sociology of religion).
1962: Kagaya Kan 加賀谷寛, “Iran rikken kakumei no seikaku nitsuite” イラン立憲革命の性格について [The nature of theConstitutional Revolution of Iran] (Islamic history).
1963: Morioka Kiyomi 森岡清美, Shinshū kyōdan to ‘ie’ seido 真宗教団と「家」制度 [The True Pure Land Buddhist sect andthe “Ie (Family)” system] (sociology of religion).
1964: Maeda Egaku 前田恵学, Genshi bukkyō seiten no seiritsushi kenkyū 原始仏教聖典の成立史研究 [A study of the history of
the establishment of the early Buddhist scriptures] (Buddhist textual studies).
1965: Kamata Shigeo 鎌田茂雄, Chūgoku kegon shisōshi no kenkyū 中国華厳思想史の研究 [A study of the history of the
Huayan thought of Chinese Buddhism] (Buddhist textual studies).
The above list gives an idea about the kind of studies promoted by JARS in the 1950s and 60s. Compare it with the assumption madeby IAHR Secretary General C. J. Bleeker in his letter to IAHR President Raffaele Pettazzoni in 1954:
Le problème est très compliqué. Je suis coinvancu [sic] qu’il nous faut considérer à Rome très serieusement [sic] les possibilitésd’assembler nos collègues dans l’Orient. Alors il ne s’agit pas seulement de surmonter les difficultés financières – je suisréaliste et ainsi je me pense que si nous pouvons déléguer un ou deux représentants à un congrès future de Tokyo, nous aurons
atteint la limite de nos forces – mais aussi des différences idéologiques. Comme il ressort de la lettre de M. Adams, “la sciencede la religion” en Japon a partiellement un but practique [sic]. De là la proposition de s’associer avec le I.A.R.F. Quoique je suis
moi-même chrétien liberal [sic] et même vice-président du I.A.R.F. il me semble douteux si nous pouvons coopérer avec cetteorganisation. Considerée du point de vue théoretique [sic] c’est un problème très intéressant. Nôtre méthode purement
scientifique est admirable, mais est ce que l’humanité de nos jours profite de nos labeurs? En Orient tous les forces doivent êtreemployés pour la reconstruction de la société, aussi la “science de la religion” et ainsi celle-ci est en danger de perdre son
caractère scientifique. Je suis curieux d’avoir votre opinion. En rapport avec cette question il me vient l’idée qu’il serait peutêtre bonne politique de nommer à Rome un japonais comme membre du Bureau Exécutif. C’est une chose purement formelle,mais ça peut ranimer l’intérêt des orientaux. (Marco Toti, “Il carteggio Pettazzoni-Bleeker. Alcuni aspetti,” Historia
Religionum. An International Journal 5 [2013], p. 84)30