Kiyozawa Manshi

Kiyozawa Manshi (1863-1901) was a Japanese Shin Buddhist reformer of samurai background who studied at Tokyo University in Western philosophy under the American philosopher Ernest Fenollosa.Popular Buddhism In Japan: Shin Buddhist Religion & Culture by Esben Andreasen, p. 40 / University of Hawaii Press 1998, ISBN: 0824820282
Many Shin scholars feel that Kiyozawa's viewpoints are comparable to the religious existentialism of Europe.Popular Buddhism In Japan: Shin Buddhist Religion & Culture by Esben Andreasen, p. 42 / University of Hawaii Press 1998, ISBN: 0824820282
Many Higashi Honganji scholars trace their line of thought to Kiyozawa Manshi, including such men as Akegarasu Haya (1877-1967), Kaneko Daiei (1881-1976), Soga Ryojin (1875-1971) and Maida Schuichi (1906-1967). Some of his essays were translated into English, and have found a Western readership.
In his, life, however, Kiyozawa was an ambivalent figure. He was emblematic of both the need for modernization, and its pitfalls. He was not popular with the members of his temple, who considered his Dharma messages too difficult to understand. Accordingly, many of his disciples were branded heretics. Kiyozawa himself died of tuberculosis quite young and therefore some consider his thought to be immature and incomplete. Even today, many conservative Shin thinkers see Kiyozawa as being emblematic of what had gone wrong with the Otani school.
==References==
December Fan: The Buddhist Essays of Manshi Kiyozawa trans. Nobuo Haneda. Higashi Hongwanji: 1984.
Category:Japanese Buddhists
Category:Pure Land Buddhism
Category:Buddhism in Japan
Category:1863 births
Category:1901 deaths
ja:清沢満之