Page 206 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

Buddhism in the Edo period

Old Worlds, has been misunderstood, until very recently, as a religion in the grip of

1
New Visions: intellectual, spiritual, and moral decline. This view, advanced by modern

Religion historians, seems to mirror that found in Edo-period literature, in the

and Art in comic tales by such popular authors as Ihara Saikaku (1623 -1693) 205

Edo Japan or in the pronouncements of such social critics as Kumazawa Banzan

2
(1619 -1691). Governmental and ideological restraints may also have

contributed to the historians' perception of moribund spirituality within
R O B E R T T . S I N G E R
Edo religious culture. In an effort to eradicate Christianity, for example,

the shogunate legislated that all Japanese households register at

Buddhist temples, with the result that the clergy came to be seen more

as agents of the government than as ministers to the people. To support

this costly system of temples, impoverished peasants were required

to contribute to the upkeep of the local temple, leading to widespread

resentment of the priestly class' increasing wealth and power. Govern-

ment control was extended to the internal regulation of Buddhist

institutions, enforcing a hierarchical organization of temples along

sectarian lines and overseeing both the scholarly and ritual activities of

the priesthood. In the popular literature of the time the priesthood

was described as consisting of unpromising offspring who were sent off

to monasteries at an early age. At the intellectual level Buddhism came

under intense ideological scrutiny from emergent schools of thought

such as Neo-Confucianism and Nativism (Kokugaku), as well as from a

Opposite: detail of Frog in Zen Meditation (cat. 125)