Japans Religions: Shinto and Buddhism
by Lafcadio Hearn
Category: Japan

"Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was one of the first Westerners to find that Eastern thought and religion satisfied both his emotions and his intellect where Western religions had failed. He remains among the few most important interpreters to the West of all aspects of Japanese life and thought. Hearn came to America at 19 and, despite poverty and hardship, nevertheless gained a reputation as an able journalist. He had published three books and was well on the road to achieving lasting fame as a writer in the West but found a new and happier existence when he went to Japan. There he married a Japanese lady who bore him three children, and was able to gain a livelihood by teaching at the universities. He labored persistently, until his premature death in 1904, to understand all the facets of the country and the nation. His descriptions of his travels and contacts with the Japanese people, together with his profound study of Shintoism and Buddhism, established him as one of the great writers of his time. Hearn came to live in Japan permanently at the moment when the government and the upper classes began quite frenziedly to transform Japan into a Westernized, industrial society. Hearn had little faith in this process and foresaw the evils it would bring. He and a few like-minded friends played an extraordinarily significant role in persuading Japanese officials to preserve parts of Japan's priceless artistic and religious heritage which, under the new dispensation, had been left to rot in abandoned temples and monasteries. The chapters of this book are taken from several of the sixteen volumes of Hearn's collected works. They provide perhaps his most enduring writings on Shinto and Buddhism. When Hearn deals with Buddhism he does not concern himself with the different sects but dwells, instead, upon the broad teaching common to all varieties of Buddhism and explains how the Culture of Japan has absorbed it and recreated it in a form native to the land. Hearn was a bold pioneer in his explanation of the historical evolution of Shintoism at a time when Japanese scholars hesitated to treat the subject objectively. It was the national religion and its myths established the divine origin and rise of the Japanese Empire. It was therefore an act of intellectual courage for Hearn to show that Shintoism was a primitive religious development; he also broke new ground when he explained the way in which primitive Shinto had developed and fused with Buddhism in the Middle Ages. Nor did his love for Japan obscure his clear vision of the uses of Shinto mythology for the preparation of totalitarianism and militarism. Hearn's writings, translated into Japanese, remain a vital and important part of Japanese culture. Numerous books and a great deal of newspaper and periodical literature about him were published recently in Japan on the occasion of the centennial. For Hearn's writings succeeded in saving for future Japanese generations much of its cultural and religious heritage. Perhaps the most difficult and complex aspect of Japanese culture are its religions; in this sphere, Hearn achieves the signal feat of being able to explain their religions successfully both to the West and to the Japanese who came after him."--Dust jacket.