Buddhist Kingship, the Kami, and Modernity : Comparative Considerations(<Special Issue>Shinbutsu Shugo and Modernity)

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  • 仏教的王権論・神仏習合・モダニティ : 比較文化論的考察(<特集>神仏習合とモダニティ)
  • Buddhist kingship, the Kami, and modernity: comparative considerations

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In this paper I address the issue of Buddhist combinatory traditions (shinbutsu shugo) and modernity by focusing on Indian ideas on kingship and their impact on premodern Japanese emperorship ; by tracing their development and their ultimate demise, I attempt to suggest some political and cultural reasons for the rejection of Buddhist syncretism by the modern Japanese nation-state. In particular, the Buddhist discourse on kingship in Japan is usually treated as a single entity. However, I argue that it was in fact a plural formation in which Indian ideas on kingship developed in at least three distinct, if partially overlapping, areas. These three discursive regimes of Buddhist kingship are, respectively, a Buddhist discourse on ideal types of rulers (the "Great Elect" or Mahasammata, the Dharma-king or dharmaraja, and the Universal emperor or cakravartin) that was applied in various ways to the Japanese rulers ; a second Buddhist discourse on kingship, running parallel to the first one, which was intended mostly for internal use by religious institutions and had few direct connections with the imperium ; and a third, originally Brahmanical discourse on the "godking" (devaraja) which developed within so-called Ryobu Shinto and Ise Shinto. The first Buddhist discourse contains almost no combinatory (shinbutsu shugo) elements, which can be found instead in the second and third discursive regimes. While the first discourse has been studied in depth, the second and the third ones have been largely neglected despite their significant contributions to Japanese ideas on the ontological foundations and the symbolism of kingship. The third discourse (on devaraja) in particular, after it had been purged of Indian references, came to constitute one of the intellectual sources of the modern sacralization of the emperor.

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