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Making the modern scholar-priest: Buddhist universities and clerical education reform in Meiji Japan

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Making the modern scholar-priest: Buddhist universities and clerical education reform in Meiji Japan

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MAKING THE MODERN SCHOLAR-PRIEST:
BUDDHIST UNIVERSITIES AND CLERICAL EDUCATION REFORM IN MEIJI JAPAN
by
Victoria Rose Montrose

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES)

MAY 2021

Copyright 2021 Victoria Rose Montrose
ii

To Matt, Arthur, and Rosie.
iii

Acknowledgments
This dissertation would not have been possible without support from the following people
and organizations. First and foremost, my committee members have been instrumental in this
process. My advisor Lori Meeks has been a sagacious teacher, mentor, and editor. She has been
generous with her time and insight and I owe much of my growth as a writer and researcher to
her guidance. Duncan Williams’ distinctive big-picture thinking has encouraged me to always
consider the broader relevance of our work as scholars. Whenever I found myself too far down a
research wormhole, Duncan’s was the voice pulling me back out by reminding me to speak
across time periods, regions, and disciplines. Rongdao Lai, with whom I share many research
interests, has been an invaluable sounding board for thinking through this project, always
providing refreshing perspective and advice, especially in making transnational connections.
During my time at USC, I was fortunate to learn from a dynamic and welcoming group of
scholars who added much to my graduate experience. When I was first starting out in my
program and transitioning my research focus from the contemporary period to the Meiji period,
Clinton Godart was immensely helpful in introducing me to the dynamics and big questions of
nineteenth century Japan. James McHugh, David Albertson, Varun Soni supplied much support
and mentorship in teaching, research, writing, and life. I gained a lot of practical research skills
from the seminars of Chris Callahan and Steph Balkwill during their time as postdoctoral fellows
at USC. I also owe many thanks to the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures’
Christine Shaw, the School of Religion’s Linda Wootton, the USC Libraries’ Japanese Studies
Librarian, Rebecca Corbett, and the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religion and Culture’s
Kana Sugita and Shannon Takushi for all the myriad ways they supported my research and life
while at USC.
iv

My research in Japan was made successful thanks to a number of teachers and scholars.
Kushida Kiyomi and Otake Hiroko at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies
trained me in reading Meiji-era university bureaucratic sources. Nishimura Akira, my faculty
advisor at the University of Tokyo was always generous with his time and feedback and helped
me to make all of the necessary research contacts I needed throughout Japan. Yano Hidetake at
Komazawa University provided assistance with accessing Komazawa materials and answering
my questions about that case study. At Taishō University, Ejima Naotoshi immediately
welcomed me into the “Universities and Religion Research Group” (Daigaku to Shukyō
Kenkyūkai), through which I met many scholars who helped shape my thinking on my project.
Ejima-sensei and his colleague Miura Shu also assisted me with gaining access to the Taishō
University archives. At Ōtani University, Takami Inoue and Michael Conway facilitated my
access to Ōtani’s archives and sponsored my institutional affiliation, which included a cozy desk
space to work during the fall of 2015. I am especially indebted to Nishimura-sensei, Ejima-
sensei, and Michael Conway, for continuing to support my research even after I returned to the
U.S. by answering questions and assisting me with acquiring additional sources. Also, during my
two years in Japan I gained much from the Buddhist Discussion Group led by Charles Muller
and Kenneth Tanaka. I am thankful for the members of that group for the community and
thought-provoking discussions we had each month.
While this project took shape, I benefited greatly from the feedback of mentors and
colleagues at many conferences, workshops, and panels. I am grateful to Helen Hardacare,
Jacqueline Stone, Levi McLaughlin, Pamela Winfield, Okuyama Michiaki, and Fujiwara Satoko
for providing insightful comments as respondents on these panels over the years. Likewise, my
v

fellow panelists supplied much inspiration and encouragement through sharing their own
projects, and in our conversations about shared research interests and questions.
My research was supported by the generosity of a number of organizations. For language
training, the U.S. Department of Education’s Foreign Language and Area Studies’ (FLAS)
Summer Fellowship and the Blakemore Freeman Fellowship allowed me to get the specialized
training I needed to read Japanese sources from the nineteenth century and earlier. The Fulbright
Graduate Research Award supported my research year in Japan, which allowed me to conduct
my archival research at my three case study universities. The USC Shinso Ito Center for
Japanese Religion and Culture and the Association for Japan-United States Community
Exchange(ACE)-Nikaido Fellowship provided support as well. Lastly, I am grateful for the USC
Graduate Student Government, for supporting graduate student parents like myself by providing
childcare grants, without which the writeup of this research would not have been possible.
My dear friends, Nadia Kanagawa and Kelly McCormick, were wellsprings of
encouragement, laughter, and support, making even the toughest research and writing days
bearable. Paula Curtis was a delightful coffee shop companion during our overlapping time in
Tokyo, always inspiring me with her organizational skills and work ethic. I am also grateful to
my friend Paride Stortini, with whom I share many research interests and whose collaborative
and kind spirit was always refreshing. Prior to coming to USC, I was lucky enough to have
befriended Courtney Bruntz and Scott Mitchell, both of whom have supported me in various
ways during this process and made every AAR annual meeting more memorable.
I am grateful to my support network of friends outside the academy, who provided regular love
and perspective, especially Ali, Ivori, Jill, Sofie, and Vanessa. I am grateful to my mom, Karen,
for fostering a love of learning in our home and to my dad, Mark, for sparking my interest in
vi

Buddhism at a young age. My husband Matt, who has only ever known me with this dissertation
project looming large in my life, was a loving, grounding force through it all. I am grateful for
his unflinching willingness to move several times to Los Angeles and Japan and back again for
my endeavors, and for always reminding me what I am capable of. To my son, Arthur, and to
my daughter, Rosemary, who is one month away from entering this world, you have both helped
me to discover new parts of myself, some of which turned out to be the magic ingredients
required to finish this dissertation. Thank you for bringing joy and levity to each day.

vii

Table of Contents
Dedication… ....................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iii
Conventions .........................................................................................................................x
Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................... xi
Abstract ............................................................................................................................. xii

Intro ......................................................................................................................................1
Study Aims and Core Questions .....................................................................................2
Situating this Study .........................................................................................................3
Case Studies ....................................................................................................................9
Ōtani University .....................................................................................................10
Komazawa University ............................................................................................12
Taishō University ...................................................................................................13
Sources and Methods .....................................................................................................16
Chapter Overview ..........................................................................................................20
A note on institutional terminology ...............................................................................23

Part I Institutions ................................................................................................................24

Chapter 1.
Fertile Grounds: Understanding Buddhist Education in the Tokugawa Period .................25
Tokugawa Educational Institutions and Ideas ...............................................................27
The Official Schools: Shōheikō, Domain Schools and Branch Schools ...............27
Shijuku.....................................................................................................................29
The Polemics of “Practicality” ...............................................................................33
Ancient Learning and Nativist Studies ..................................................................38
Modalities of Buddhist Education .................................................................................41
Tokugawa-era Buddhist Seminaries .............................................................................52
A note on sources ...................................................................................................52
Jōdo Sect ................................................................................................................53
Institutional Overview .......................................................................................53
Student Life and Curriculum .............................................................................55
Jōdo Shin Sect, Otani Denomination .....................................................................56
Institutional Overview ........................................................................................56
Student Life and Curriculum ..............................................................................58
Tendai Sect.............................................................................................................60
Institutional Overview ........................................................................................60
Student Life and Curriculum ..............................................................................63
Sōtō Sect ................................................................................................................65
Institutional Overview ........................................................................................65
Student Life and Curriculum ..............................................................................68
Conclusion .............................................................................................................70

viii

Chapter 2.
Seeds of Change: Curricular Reform in Early Meiji Period Buddhist Academies ............71
Ideas, Individuals, and Institutions behind National Education Discourse in the Early
Meiji Period ...................................................................................................................72
The Great Promulgation Campaign and the Great Teaching Institute .................73
The University of Tokyo ......................................................................................78
Global Curricular Reforms: Parallels and Divergences .......................................82
Early Experiments with Buddhist Education for a Global Context:
A Case Study of the Gohōjō ...........................................................................................84
Buddhist Curricula: A Comparative Analysis ................................................................94
Organizational and Structural Changes ................................................................95
Curricular Content Changes ..................................................................................99
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................108

Part II Individuals ............................................................................................................110

Chapter 3.
New Shoots: Protests and Professionalization in the Modern
Scholar-Priesthood ...........................................................................................................111
Student Protests and Collective Action........................................................................112
Protests and Conflict at Ōtani’s Institute for the Protection of the Dharma .......112
Student Strikes at the Sōtō Academy ..................................................................122
Analysis................................................................................................................125
New Constraints and Fresh Prosects for Buddhists in Meiji Education Policy ...........133
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................142
The Emerging Professional Scholar-Priest ..........................................................142

Chapter 4.
Branches and Blooms: Scholar-priests, Buddhist Scholarly Networks, and the Birth of Modern
Buddhist Studies in Japan ................................................................................................145
The Pioneer: Hara Tanzan ...........................................................................................146
Tanzan’s Life and Career .....................................................................................146
Tanzan’s Methods and Approach to Buddhist Studies ........................................152
The Polymath: Nanjō Bunyū .......................................................................................157
Nanjō’s Life and Career .......................................................................................157
Nanjō’s Methods and Approach to Buddhist Studies ..........................................161
The Paragon: Mochizuki Shinkō .................................................................................165
Mochizuki’s Life and Career ...............................................................................165
Mochizuki’s Methods and Approach to Buddhist Studies ..................................168
The Bukkyō Daijiten and its Significance ............................................................173
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................176

Epilogue ...........................................................................................................................179
Ripe for the Picking: Future Avenues of Inquiry ........................................................182
Additional Case Studies ..........................................................................................182
ix

Buddhist Women’s Higher Education .....................................................................184
Synchronic and Diachronic Expansions ..................................................................184

References… ....................................................................................................................188
Appendices .......................................................................................................................204
Appendix 1: Timeline of Institutional and Name Changes ....................................204
Appendix 2: 1825 Year-in-the-Gakuryō .................................................................206
Appendix 3: Ōtani Denomination’s Gakuryō Organizational Chart
from the Bunsei Era (1818-1830) .......................................................209
Appendix 4: List of Tendai texts used in the Tokugawa Period .............................210
x

Conventions
Language
I have used modified Hepburn for Japanese and standard modern romanizations for other
languages. Buddhist terms are given in Japanese and in other Buddhist languages such as
Sanskrit (“Skt.” in the footnotes) where relevant. Except where otherwise indicated, all
translations are my own.
Dates
Japan used a lunisolar calendar until switching to the Gregorian system in 1873. Prior to the
Meiji period, era names were changed frequently based on the auspiciousness of certain
astrological cycles, after natural disasters, or following a change in emperor. Beginning in the
Meiji period, era names became strictly aligned to imperial accession. In the interest of
accessibility for readers outside of Japanese Studies, I have given years using the approximate
Gregorian calendar equivalent. For instance, the sixth year of the Genbun era ( 元文六年) is
written as 1741.
Names
Names follow Japanese convention with the family name followed by the given (birth or
ordination) name. Thereafter, persons are referred to by their family name unless otherwise
noted.

xi

Abbreviations

KDN Komazawa daigaku hachijū nenshi 駒澤大学八十年史. Tokyo: Komazawa Daigaku
Henshū Iinkai, 1962.

ODN Ōtani Daigaku Hensan Iinkai 大谷大学百年史編纂委員会, ed. Ōtani Daigaku
Hyakunenshi 大谷大学百年史. Kyoto: Ōtani Daigaku, 2001.

TDR Taisho Daigaku Gojū Ryakushi Hensan Iinkai 大正大学五十略史編纂委員会.
Taisho Daigaku Gojū Ryakushi 大正大学五十略史. Tokyo: Taisho Daigaku,
1976.

xii

Abstract
This dissertation explores the central role of a new educational institution, the modern
university, in constructing a novel image of the Buddhist priest in nineteenth-century Japan. The
adoption of the modern university model by religious and secular institutions alike during Japan’s
Meiji era (1868-1912) has previously been framed as one of many examples of Japan importing
Western institutions. The initial impetus for this project was to call this characterization into
question by examining Buddhist agency in responding to forces of modernization and
globalization. This study is based on twelve months of archival research at three of Japan’s oldest
and most prominent Buddhist universities: the Jōdo Shin sect’s Ōtani University, the Sōtō Zen
sect’s Komazawa University, and the multi-sectarian Taishō University. I draw on official
university histories, curricula, administrative correspondence, early scholarly publications, and
memoirs of students and faculty, to highlight the mutually constitutive relationship between the
modern priesthood and Buddhist universities. In addition, I look at the emergence of the modern
scholar-priest and demonstrate the centrality of these individuals in the development of the field
of Buddhist Studies, in Japan and abroad.
In the Introduction, I discuss previous works in the three areas of scholarship with which
this dissertation is in closest dialogue: (1) histories of modern Japanese Buddhism; (2) genealogies
of the field of Buddhist Studies and its formative Japanese scholars; and (3) histories of Japanese
and global higher education. I also contend with the limitations of relying on archival resources
and introduce the methodological tools used in this study, including professionalization theory and
new institutionalism from the field of sociology. The main body of the dissertation consists of two
parts. In Part I, “Institutions,” I assess institutional developments within Buddhist higher education
from the Tokugawa period (1600-1868) through the nineteenth century. Chapter 1 establishes the
necessary historical context for determining what, if anything changed, within Buddhist education
xiii

with the introduction of the university model at the onset of the Meiji period. To do so, I examine
the broader educational landscape and survey Buddhist higher education in the Tokugawa period.
In Chapter 2, I turn to institutional and curricular reforms in the Meiji period as Buddhist higher
education shifted from the traditional seminary model to a broader “academy”-model that
incorporated increasingly diverse subjects and laid the groundwork for the transition to modern
universities. I argue that by incorporating the study of non-Buddhist subjects such as Christianity
and the sciences into their expanded curricula, these academies gradually transformed their
orientation from sectarian to global, allowing Buddhists in Japan to position themselves among
the world religions for the first time.
Part II, “Individuals,” takes a closer look at the role individual priests played in the
modernization of Buddhist higher education. Chapter 3 examines instances of student-led protest
and collective action to bring to light the intra-sectarian debates that accompanied the
modernization process. I assert that these conflicts are important not only for outlining shifting
views on the purpose of Buddhist education, but also for revealing a growing intellectual autonomy
of these institutions from their parent sects. In Chapter 4 I discuss the lives and careers of three
formative modern scholar-priests, each from a different sect: Hara Tanzan (1819-1892), Nanjō
Bunyū (1849-1927), and Mochizuki Shinkō (1869-1948). I highlight not only the scholarly
contributions made by each, but also their roles in developing domestic and transnational networks
between secular and sectarian scholars in Japan and abroad. These networks were critical in the
formation of modern Buddhist Studies and the activities of these scholars uncover Buddhist
universities as central nodes of these scholarly networks. Finally, the epilogue revisits core themes
and arguments of the dissertation and posits futures avenues of research.
xiv

Taken as a whole, the core argument of this study is as follows. Building off institutional
infrastructure and intellectual trends in the Tokugawa period, the reforms to Buddhist higher
education in the Meiji period with the introduction of the university model resulted in four
interrelated outcomes. First, expanded curricula at these institutions shifted clerical identity from
a sectarian to a global orientation. Second, the curricular and structural changes resulted in a
transition from seminaries to academies that produced greater intellectual autonomy from the sects.
Third, this intellectual autonomy allowed for an expansion of imagined roles for the modern priest,
including a new genre: the modern scholar-priest. Distinct from earlier generations, the modern
scholar-priest integrated emic knowledge with modern institutions and Western methods to
rearticulate, or translate, Japanese Buddhism within the emerging modern field of Buddhist
Studies. Finally, the modern scholar-priest, educated within these academies (officially
universities in the 1920s), made enduring contributions to the global field of Buddhist Studies in
part by reconstructing the relationship between Japanese Buddhism and Buddhism in the rest of
Asia.
1

Introduction
The start of the Meiji period marked a historical low point for the social standing of
Buddhist priests in Japan. The transition out of the Tokugawa period had not been easy due to
the policy of the separation of Buddhism and Shinto, namely the Shinbutsu Hanzenrei
1
and the
subsequent haibutsu kishaku
2
movement which led to the forced laicization of thousands of
Buddhist priests, and the closure or destruction of an estimated sixty-percent of temples between
the end of the Tokugawa period and the early Meiji period.
3
Further, Buddhism lost its
hegemony with the end of the tera-uke system
4
and the revocation of the special legal status
granted to Buddhist clerics with reforms to registration laws.
5
Increased interaction with other
major religious traditions also led Japanese Buddhists to grapple with their role in modernity and
place within the ‘world religions.’ For Buddhists, a crisis of identity ensued. During this period,
many questioned Buddhism’s compatibility with modernity and the nation-state, debated

1
Shinbutsu Hanzenrei 神仏判然令 means the “Separation of Shinto and Buddhism Order.” This refers to
an edict issued in April of 1868 that required the many Shinto-Buddhist commingled shrine-temple
complexes to select either Buddhism or Shinto and to remove all other elements. This led to the haibutsu
kishaku movement.
2
Literally “abolish Buddhism, destroy Śākyamuni,” the haibutsu kishaku 廃仏毀釈 movement was a
violent backlash against Buddhism in the early Meiji period.
3
Tamamuro 1997: 504-5.
4
Following the Shimabara Rebellion in 1638 between predominantly Catholic peasants and the
Tokugawa shogunate in the Shimabara peninsula located in present-day Nagasaki prefecture, the tera-uke
system was implemented as a state-mandated system that required all subjects to register with a Buddhist
temple in order to demonstrate that they were not Christian. Registration was organized by household, or
danka 檀家, which served as a de facto census and a means to control subjects.
5
壬申戸籍 The Jinshin Koseki Law was a new household registration system implemented in 1871
designed to replace the tera-uke system of the Tokugawa period. See Jaffe 2001: 60.
2

Buddhism’s status as a foreign or indigenous religion, and deliberated whether Buddhism could
compete with Christianity globally.
Accordingly, Buddhists pursued both internal reform and external opportunities to build
their relationship with the Meiji state. Many Buddhists leaders across sects and ideological
orientations believed that education was the key to both these concerns, though they diverged on
what form that education should take.
6
High-stakes debates emerged over reforms to Buddhist
education as Buddhists confronted these questions of modernity. In response to the perceived
threat from the rise of groups like Christian missionaries and the rise of Shinto nationalists,
Buddhists generally fell in one of two camps. The reformists believed the best way forward was
to face the increasingly pluralizing religious landscape through engagement with and education
in non-Buddhist teachings, while conservatives felt it was better to return to sectarian
fundamentals by reinforcing traditional values and practices.
7

Study Aims and Core Questions
This dissertation examines the impact of a new educational institution, the modern
university, on Buddhist higher education and the emergence of the modern priesthood. It will
focus on two questions in particular: (1) How did Buddhist higher education change in
nineteenth-century Japan; and (2) What effect did these changes have on the priesthood? To

6
An early example is the Shoshū Doutoku Kaimei 諸宗同徳会盟, a pan-sectarian Buddhist association
that laid out a list of eight topics for further study including the establishment of new schools. See Miura
2014: 204 and Jaffe 2001: 101.
7
I have chosen to rely on translations of terms used most frequently in the university official histories like
shinpōteki 進歩的 (progressive), kaikakusha 改革者(reformer) and hoshuteki 保守的 (conservative).
Alternatively, Jeffrey Schroeder uses the terms “modernist” and “traditionalist” respectively to refer to the
same factions with the Ōtani denomination (Schroeder 2015).
3

address these questions, this study illuminates the manner through which Japanese Buddhists
both responded to and participated in modern institutional changes and an emerging global
intellectual milieu to fundamentally shift the way the priesthood was educated. With few
exceptions, scholars have overlooked the institutional role of the university as a new source of
power and intellectual authority within Buddhism. As central sites of intellectual and cultural
shifts, Buddhist universities were the engine driving the development of the modern Buddhist
priesthood and made substantial contributions to the emerging field of Buddhist Studies. This
work also serves as a case study in examining the enduring connections between religious
traditions and global institutions of higher education.

Situating this Study
The current study is situated at the nexus of three areas of scholarship: (1) studies on the
history of modern Japanese Buddhism; (2) genealogies of the field of Buddhist Studies and the
foundational scholars who helped to shape it in Japan; and (3) and histories of higher education
in Japan and globally. I will treat each in turn.
Scholars have examined the Meiji-era modernization of Japanese Buddhism with a wide
spectrum of approaches: ideological and intellectual trends,
8
education,
9
lay movements,
10

international travel and missionizing,
11
and institutional change, especially vis-à-vis Buddhism’s

8
Ikeda 1976, Ketelaar 1993, Yoshinaga 2012, Sawada 2004, Deneckere 2014, Mohr 2014.
9
Tanigawa Yutaka (2009) has been the most prolific scholar on this topic, though his work focuses on
Buddhist efforts to influence primary and secondary education of the laity and does not extend to
sectarian higher education.
10
Ikeda 1998, Shields 2017.
11
Snodgrass 2003, Jaffe 2019, Tanabe 2005, Harding 2008, Iwata 2016.
4

relationship to the state.
12
Collectively these studies reveal the diverse strategies Buddhists
employed in response to the challenges posed by a rapidly shifting social, political, and
economic landscape. At the same time, much of this research challenged earlier scholarship that
portrayed the developments of the Meiji era as a “radical break,” with little continuity from the
Tokugawa period. Chapter 1 of this study continues to challenge this radical break thesis by
identifying important institutional and ideological precedents from the Tokugawa period that
made the Meiji-era developments possible.
A second active area of research in recent years among modernists in Buddhist Studies
has been a critical examination of the genealogy and history of the field. Within Japanese
Buddhist Studies, Jacqueline Stone,
13
Sueki Fumihiko,
14
and Jamie Hubbard with Paul
Swanson,
15
were among the progenitors of this trend. Orion Klautau’s work on the establishment
of Buddhist Studies at the imperial universities, especially Tokyo Imperial University, has called
attention to the strategic use of historiography by early scholars at these universities to construct
a distinctive understanding of “Japanese Buddhism” that comported with the emerging Japanese
imperial state.
16
This dissertation builds on the insights from Klautau’s findings but argues that

12
Jaffe 2001. Thomas 2019.
13
Stone 1990.
14
Kindai Nihon no shisō, saikō (2004) is a two-volume work that includes Meiji shisōka ron (Essays on
Meiji Intellectuals) and Kindai Nihon to Bukkyō (Buddhism and Modern Japan). Tokyo: Transview.
15
Pruning the Bodhi Tree (1997). Hubbard and Swanson’s edited volume was important for bringing and
expanding the debates of “critical Buddhism,” a sweeping critique of what counts as “Buddhism” in both
scholarly and practitioner circles, into English-language scholarship, but critical Buddhism, or hihan
bukkyō 批判仏教, originated with the work of two Zen scholars Hakamaya Noriaki 袴谷憲昭 and
Matsumoto Shirō 松本史朗.
16
Klautau 2012. See also the 2014 issue of the journal Japanese Religions, “Special Issue: The Politics of
Buddhist Studies in Early Twentieth-Century Japan,” edited by Klautau.
5

the formation of Buddhist Studies in Japan cannot be fully understood without a better
understanding of the role of Buddhist universities in shaping the field.
Also within the historical inquiries into the birth of Buddhist Studies in Japan, a number
of works have focused on the contributions of individual Meiji Buddhist reformers such as Inoue
Enryō,
17
Shimaji Mokurai,
18
Murakami Senshō,
19
Kiyozawa Manshi,
20
Shaku Sōen.
21
These
publications have uncovered the rich ideological tapestry woven by these intellectuals in the
service of modernizing Buddhism and ensuring Japan played a significant role in shaping the
field of Buddhist Studies as it took shape globally.
22
Chapter 4 of this dissertation shares this
approach by looking at the lives of three other prominent Buddhist Studies scholars: Hara
Tanzan, Nanjō Bunyū, and Mochizuki Shinkō. Though Hara, Nanjō, and Mochizuki are well-
known figures, they are rarely the main subject of research, especially when compared with the
Buddhist reformers listed above. The chapter’s focus is not only on how these men shaped the
field of Buddhist Studies, but also on the ways in which they represented the embryonic stages of
the modern scholar-priest that Buddhist universities were in the business of producing.
The final area of scholarship is the history of higher education in Japan and globally.
Starting from the most proximal, among the many illuminating studies on Japanese Buddhism’s
reckoning with modernizing forces in the Meiji period, only a single book-length publication at

17
Staggs 1979 and 1983. Schulzer 2019.
18
Kramer 2015.
19
Mohr 2014, Chapter 4; Shields 2005.
20
Hashimoto 2003. Tsunoda 2004. Schroeder 2015. Curley 2018.
21
See Mohr 2014, especially Chapter 9. Jaffe 2019, Chapter 1.
22
Importantly, the majority of these kinds of studies focus on progressive reformers. There remains much
work to be done in capturing the views of the conservative Buddhist intellectuals of the Meiji period. See
Chapter 9 of Sawada 2004 and Ward 2005.
6

the time of this writing has devoted sustained attention to the transformation of Buddhist higher
educational institutions: the edited volume by Ejima Naotoshi, Miura Shū, and Matsuno
Tomoaki, Kindai Nihon no Daigaku to Shūkyō (Universities and Religion in Modern Japan,
2014).
23
The four chapters on Buddhism are comprised of three case studies, one from the
Shingon sect and two from the Jōdo sect.
24
Beyond the four chapters in this volume, Ejima
Naotoshi and Hayashi Makoto have published a number of articles and book chapters that
provide broad overviews of the “birth” of Buddhist universities.
25
These works offer essential
entry points to thinking about Buddhist universities as a historical phenomenon and highlight
important institutional, socio-political, economic, ideological, and doctrinal issues raised by their
emergence.
The present work builds on the findings of Ejima, Hayashi, and the others in this group of
scholars in three ways. First, it conducts an extended analysis of three case-study institutions.
This approach, centered in chapters 2 and 3, has the benefit of identifying the distinctive histories
of each institution, while the use of multiple case studies supplies the means to identify the social

23
Ejima et al 2014. As the title indicates, the volume’s scope extends beyond Buddhism. Its nine chapters
include four on Buddhist institutions, while the remaining five examine Christian universities and the
study of religion and philosophy at the imperial Tokyo and Kyoto Universities. This volume is the first in
a three-volume series on religion and universities in Japan. Subsequent volumes cover wartime Japan
(Senji Nihon no Daigaku to Shūkyō 2017) and post-war Japan (forthcoming).
24
Abe Takako’s chapter investigates why the Shingon sect was slower than other sects to modernize its
curriculum, especially in general education, citing sectarian conservatism and government-mandated
sectarian consolidation as the primary reasons. Shibata Taisen’s and Ishida Kazuhiro’s chapters examine
the contribution of individual figures, Mochizuki Shinkō and Watanabe Kaikyoku respectively, to
developments within the Jōdo sect and to the formation of the global field of Buddhist Studies. A fourth
chapter by Miura Shū explores curricular changes within the two esoteric sects, Tendai and Shingon, from
the Taishō to the early Showa periods.
25
Hayashi 2002, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014.
7

and political crosscurrents that transcended individual sects. Put another way, multiple case
studies allow for greater discernment about just what is particular and what is universal (or at the
very least, more widely shared) with the history of Buddhist higher educational institutions.
A second way this study builds on earlier scholarship on the modernization of Buddhist
higher education is by looking further back in time to the Tokugawa period. The Tokugawa
period is almost entirely absent from current scholarly discussion on the modernization of
Buddhist education.
26
Especially missing is any kind of comprehensive survey beyond a single
sect’s history. Chapter 1 of this dissertation extends the period of focus back into the Tokugawa
period, underscoring not only the changes but also the continuities that connect the pre-modern,
early modern, and modern eras. It also widens the scope of discussion by examining and
comparing the histories of multiple sects.
Next, this dissertation contextualizes the Buddhist universities within the histories of
higher education in Japan and globally. In addition to general surveys,
27
historians of Japanese
higher education have looked at prominent intellectuals
28
and the development of specific
schools or fields (medicine,
29
engineering,
30
law,
31
and Chinese Studies
32
). This study identifies
key parallels and divergences with the imperial universities and the non-Buddhist private
universities. When looking globally, a synchronic analysis seeks to understand the ways in which

26
Sawada as an exception because she categorizes as “19
th
century” rather than Edo-Meiji divide.
27
Amano Ikuo 1988 and 2009. Kusahara 2008. Kitamura 2001.
28
See for example Dendo 2013, Tokorozawa 1995.
29
In the area of historical studies on Japanese higher education, Hoi-eun Kim’s Doctors of Empire:
Medical and Cultural Encounters between Imperial Germany and Meiji Japan (2014)
30
Miyoshi 2004.
31
Miyazawa 2000.
32
Mehl 2003.
8

Japanese Buddhists were in a dialectic with Western academics. Much of this work is concerned
with the process through which Buddhist scholar-priests negotiated, shaped, and translated the
emergent frames for studying Buddhism as a result of this dialectic. This approach challenges
tendencies by some scholars in the social sciences to characterize Japan’s (and by extension,
Japanese Buddhism’s) modernization as a process of importation or diffusion of institutional
models from the West.
33
Accordingly, one of our aims here is to test and explore the application
of sociological models, such as new institutionalism and professionalization theories, for
explaining institutional and social change that have thus far been lacking in studies like Ejima’s
and Hayashi’s. This goal has explanatory potential for this study but also helps to bridge
disciplinary and regional silos in the hope of diversifying the field of the history of higher
education.
34

Lastly, in situating this research within studies on the history of higher education
globally, it is important to consider Japanese Buddhists’ counterparts throughout Buddhist Asia.
This dissertation shares many goals with Rongdao Lai’s research on the modernization of
monastic education in early twentieth-century China, especially in its concern for the relationship
between institutions and individuals.
35
Erik Hammerstrom’s work on Chinese Buddhists’
engagement with modern science also bears relevance to this study, in particular with regard to
Buddhists’ strategic use and interpretation of forms of modern knowledge.
36
Uri Kaplan’s study
of the ways Buddhist curriculum in contemporary South Korea has been shaped by global trends
in Buddhist Studies reveals a continued dialectic between secular and monastic scholars that

33
See for example Meyer et al. (2018).
34
This includes the history of religion in/and higher education which is dominated by Christian Studies.
35
Lai 2013.
36
Hammerstrom 2015.
9

nineteenth-century Japanese Buddhist scholar-priests (the subject of this study) helped to
establish.
37
Finally, leaving the narrow bounds of Buddhist higher education, Thomas Borchert’s
research on Buddhist education in the minority community of Dai-lue in Sipsongpannā, China,
and Justin McDaniels’ study of monastic curricula and pedagogy in Laos and Thailand have
demonstrated the wealth of insights that can be gained by using education as the primary lens
through which to examine a Buddhist community.
38
There remains a need for a comprehensive,
transnational survey of Buddhist education, across Buddhist history or even focused on the
modern period. But until one is produced, the present work adds itself to the growing chorus of
primarily regionally focused case studies of Buddhist education.

Case Studies
In designing this project, it was necessary to identify universities with some of the
longest histories with sizable archives to draw from. Institutional support was another relevant
factor, as gaining access to archival materials and university archivists and historians was crucial
to making sure I would be able to do the research. It was also important to select universities
from different sects in order to get as wide a picture as possible so that sectarian idiosyncrasies
could be distinguished from broader trends. However, the decision to include three case studies
placed limits on period of study. Accordingly, this dissertation focuses on the latter half of the
nineteenth century and plans for expanding this research into the contemporary period are
discussed in the epilogue.

37
Kaplan 2015.
38
Borchert 2017 and McDaniel 2012.
10

As will quickly become apparent, the three universities I am calling “case studies”
conveys a misleading degree of institutional coherence and continuity. In reality, these three case
studies are better understood as umbrellas under which a multitude of Buddhist higher
educational institutions were born, died, or transformed. Appendix 1 outlines the historical name
changes for each case study and in a few instances, I have noted major institutional additions,
mergers, or closures. What follows is a brief overview of each case-study university. For the
purposes of readability, this section refers to each case study by its current institutional name. In
subsequent chapters I will use the historically accurate names of each institution for the period
being studied.

Ōtani University
Ōtani University belongs to the Ōtani Higashi Honganji denomination of the Jōdo Shin
sect.
39
The earliest founding date
40
given for Ōtani is 1665, when a Buddhist lecture hall
41
in
Kyūshū that pre-dated the Jōdo Shin sect
42
was relocated to Kyoto and established as a Jōdo Shin
seminary. This was followed by two centuries of cycles of growth and contraction, as well as

39
Jōdo Shinshū is the largest sect of Buddhism within Japan, with over 11 million adherents, of which the
Ōtani denomination contributes 3.2 million. (Bunkachō Bunka-bu Shūmuka 文化庁文化部宗務課,
Shūkyō Tōkei Chōsa Kekka 宗教統計調査結果 (平成 26 年 12 月 31 日),
https://www.bunka.go.jp/tokei_hakusho_shuppan/tokeichosa/shumu/pdf/h26kekka.pdf (accessed
December 3, 2020))
40
As with each of these institutions, founding dates depend on whether one links the “founding” to the
first instance of the current name or location of the institution, the beginning of an institutional format
that most closely resembles the present, or simply marks the earliest historical institutional antecedent. As
such, these case studies have several potential founding dates.
41
kōdō 講堂
42
觀世音寺 Kanzeon-ji was the center of early Buddhism in Kyūshū during the Asuka period (538-710).
See McCallum 2008: 192-196.
11

changes to the name, structure, and content of the institution, much of which will be outlined in
chapters 1 and 2. In 1901, Kiyozawa Manshi
43
was named the first president of the newly
renamed Shinshū University
44
which more closely resembled a modern university, making 1901
another important founding date. Finally, as part of the changes to accreditation brought about by
the University Ordinance
45
of 1918, universities could not bear overly broad names, such as
“Shinshū University.” Consequently, Ōtani University received its current name in 1922 when it
received governmental accreditation as a university by the Taishō government.
46
Ōtani shares the
distinction of being the first accredited Buddhist university, along with Nishi Honganji’s
Ryūkoku University.
Several aspects of Ōtani University’s history make it a robust object of study. First, it was
one of the earliest Buddhist higher educational institutions to experiment with modernization.
The first reforms took place within weeks of the start of the Meiji period in 1868, providing
valuable insight into the ways Jōdo Shin Buddhists responded to the rupture of centuries-long
policies and institutions, and the envisioned role of education in those responses. Ōtani
University also educated and employed a substantial list of prominent (Jōdo Shin and non-Jōdo
Shin) Buddhist intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including Nanjō Bunyū,
47

43
清沢満之
44
Shinshū Daigaku 真宗大学
45
Daigakurei 大学令
46
This regulation also affected Sōtō Sect University, which was renamed Komazawa University as part of
its accreditation process. Bukkyō (Buddhist) University (Bukkyō Daigaku 佛教大学) would seem to be
an outlier to this regulation, but although it was founded in 1868 by the Jōdo sect, it did not achieve
accreditation as a university until 1949 under the government’s education policy reforms.
47
南条文雄 (1849-1927) Nanjō’s life is covered in detail in Chapter 4.
12

Kiyozawa Manshi,
48
Suzuki Daisetsu,
49
Nishida Kitaro,
50
and Nishitani Keiji.
51
Through
examination of Ōtani as an institution that both shaped and was shaped by these intellectuals, we
gain new insights into the relationship between ideas, individuals, and institutions in the
formation of modern Buddhism. Finally, Ōtani University’s early engagement with universities
and scholars in Europe and the United States made it a useful lens through which to study
Japanese Buddhist contribution to the nascent field of Buddhist Studies globally.

Komazawa University
Komazawa University belongs to the Sōtō sect of Zen.
52
Its earliest founding date is
1592, as a seminary, or gakuryō,
53
within the temple, Kichijōji.
54
In 1657 the seminary was
renamed Sendanrin
55
following a gift of land from Shōgun Tokugawa Ietsuna
56
and the
institution had enrollments of over one thousand students for much of the Tokugawa period. The

48
清沢満之(1863-1903)
49
鈴木大拙 (1870-1966). Better known in the West as D.T. Suzuki, Suzuki taught at Ōtani University
and, with his wife Beatrice Lane, co-founded the Eastern Buddhist Society and its English-language
academic journal, The Eastern Buddhist, housed out of Ōtani University.
50
西田幾多郎 (1870-1945) Prior to teaching at Ōtani, Nishida also taught at one of the predecessors to
Taishō University, the Shingon sect’s Buzan University ( 豊山大学), in 1910.
51
西谷啓治 (1900-1990)
52
Sōtō Zen is the fourth largest sect of Buddhism in Japan with over 3.5 million members. (Bunkachō
Bunka-bu Shūmuka 文化庁文化部宗務課, Shūkyō Tōkei Chōsa Kekka 宗教統計調査結果 ( 平成 26 年
12 月 31 日), https://www.bunka.go.jp/tokei_hakusho_shuppan/tokeichosa/shumu/pdf/h26kekka.pdf
(accessed December 3, 2020))
53
学寮
54
吉祥寺
55
栴檀林
56
徳川家綱 (1641-1680)
13

seminary was reorganized in 1882 as Sōtōshū Academy Professional School,
57
marking its
transition to a modern university. In 1925, what was then known as Sōtōshū University was
granted governmental accreditation and, as with Ōtani University, was required to adopt a less
generic name; hence, it became Komazawa University.
The primary reason for selecting Komazawa as a case study was because of its status as
the largest and most well-known of all Zen-affiliated universities in Japan. The outsized presence
of Zen Buddhism in both Japanese Buddhism’s global image as well as Japanese Buddhist
Studies in the United States also spurred my curiosity about the part Zen universities may have
played in fostering such a role. In the mid-Meiji period, Sōtō priest Hara Tanzan, an early
pioneer in Japanese Buddhist Studies and the first lecturer of Buddhist Studies at the University
of Tokyo, spent the final years of his life and career at Komazawa. Tanzan’s life and works are
examined in Chapter 4. Finally, Komazawa’s archives contained some of the most ambitious
curricular reforms
58
and best documented student protests
59
of the Meiji period, two topics
germane to my discussion of modernization of the priesthood.

Taishō University
Taishō University is unique among the case studies because it is the only multi-sectarian
university. It is the result of a merging of initially three but eventually four separate sectarian
schools. In the Taishō University official history,
60
each of the pre-merger sectarian schools trace
back to Tokugawa-period institutions, though in all cases there were earlier antecedents. The

57
Sōtōshū Daigakurin Senmon Gakkō 曹洞宗大学林専門本校
58
See chapter 2.
59
See chapter 3.
60
TDR 1976.
14

idea for a pan-sectarian Buddhist university was first posited in 1868 at the inaugural meeting of
the Buddhist Ethical Alliance,
61
an organization of leaders from many of the largest sects formed
with the goal of renewing Buddhism and fortifying it against Christian threat. The vision for this
university was a place where the citizenry and not only priests could receive a Buddhist
education, though precisely what was meant by Buddhist education was never prescribed. When
plans could not be agreed upon, sects focused their efforts on developing schools for the purpose
of training their own priests.
62
In 1916, the idea was revived by Sawayanagi Masataro
63
a
prominent national educator and future founding president of Taishō University, who issued a
manifesto about the pressing need for a pan-Buddhist university. He wrote that “a unified
Buddhist university is necessary for Buddhist Studies, for the Buddhist religion, and for the
sects’ education, propagation, and financial stability.”
64
This sense of urgency stemmed from the
belief that Buddhist education was sliding back into a kind of sectarian isolation that would leave
Buddhism less united and thus more vulnerable to losing its position in society. Three years later,
he was joined in his initiative by four leading Buddhist scholars,
65
who among other things
recognized the difficulties many Buddhist institutions were having with meeting governmental
regulations to receive accreditation and believed that a pan-Buddhist university could pool

61
Shoshū Dōtoku Kaimei 諸宗同徳会盟. This organization operated from 1868-1873. See Miura 2014:
204-207. Tsuji 1949: 83-166.
62
Miura 2014: 207.
63
Sawayanagi Masatarō 澤柳政太郎 (1865-1927)
64
TDR 272. See also Kageyama 2001.
65
Those four men were Murakami Senshō 村上専精 (1851-1929; Jōdo Shinshū cleric), Takakusu Junjiro
高楠順次郎 (1866-1945; Jōdo Shinshū lay Buddhist), Masaharu Anesaki 姉崎正治 (1873-1949;
Nichiren lay Buddhist), and Eun Maeda 前田慧雲 (1857-1930; Jōdo Shinshū cleric).
15

resources among those struggling institutions.
66
Their efforts culminated in the 1926 founding of
Taishō University.
Though Sawayanagi and the others were not able to actualize a wholly unified or pan-
Buddhist university that included all the main sects in Japan, Taishō is nevertheless a multi-
sectarian university comprised of four sects/schools: the Jōdo sect, the Buzan school of the
Shingon sect, the Chisan school of the Shingon sect, and the Tendai sect. Besides Taishō
University, the only other Buddhist-affiliated university in Japan not belonging to a single sect is
Ashikaga University. Ashikaga University, however, was not a suitable case study for this
research because it was founded in the post-war period and because its mission was to integrate
Buddhist values into an engineering course. Taishō’s unique standing as the only multi-sectarian
Buddhist higher education institution that educates priests make it an important case study, even
as the merging of the member schools to establish Taishō University did not take place until after
the time period that is the focus of this study. The Taishō University archives contained records
from each of the sectarian predecessor schools making it a useful place as a researcher to expand
my survey across more sects without the practical barriers of gaining access to and travelling
between four additional archives. Taishō University and some of its predecessors in the Jōdo sect
were also of interest as the intellectual home of Mochizuki Shinkō, a Jōdo priest and towering
early figure of Buddhist Studies in Japan.
67

66
TDR: 271-272.
67
See Chapter 4.
16

Sources and Methods
I conducted the research over twelve months, from 2015 to 2016. During this time, my
primary affiliation was with the University of Tokyo as a Visiting Foreign Researcher with the
Religious Studies Department.
68
In addition, I split my time conducting archival research
between the three case studies, though I was only granted official institutional affiliation as a
Visiting Researcher at Ōtani University (fall 2015) and Taishō University (spring 2016). My
access to the Komazawa University archival materials was limited to requests I could make
through the University of Tokyo library system, and as such the pace of my Komazawa research
was substantially throttled by inter-institutional bureaucratic delays. Nevertheless, the published
official histories of all three universities served as useful starting points for archival inquiry and
comparative analysis across the case studies.
These official histories are usually published at milestone anniversaries of each schools’
founding. They are written by an editorial team for a niche readership of mainly sectarian
scholars without much discussion regarding the ways these institutions fit into broader topics
such as Japanese Buddhist history or the global history of higher education, for example. The
volumes all follow the same format: a chronological telling of the institution’s history, starting
with a brief discussion of the pre-Meiji predecessors, and moving through time until the period
of publication. Some include a separate volume of primary sources; in others, primary sources
are embedded within the main volume.
Though official histories were valuable resources in conducting this research, it is crucial
at the outset to establish a degree of skepticism regarding these sources and the archives from
which they were produced. It is important to observe what is included as much as what is

68
Tokyo Daigaku Shūkyō Kenkyūshitsu 東京大学宗教研究.
17

excluded, understanding archives in the Foucauldian sense as “the general system of the
formation and transformation of statements,” otherwise known as the place where the system of
“enunciability” is defined.
69
Jacques Derrida famously opens Archive Fever with the observation
that the etymological roots of “archive” are found in the Greek arkhē, which holds dual meaning
of “commencement” and “commandment.”
70
Archives, therefore, are the place of discursive and
imagined ‘origins,’ but only in such a manner deemed acceptable by those in power. Likewise,
the possession and maintenance of archives establishes and reproduces the discourse and
authority of groups already in power.
An obvious but often overlooked point is that the establishment and maintenance of
archives play a large role in the kind of scholarship that is readily produced.
71
That I am telling
the stories of the Buddhist educational institutions that first and foremost, survived to the present
day and second, have devoted much time and many resources to the preservation of their own
history, is not a coincidence.
72
One pitfall to this kind of study, then, is that by focusing on
prominent institutions, it privileges the more powerful educational institutions and eschews
narratives about institutions that failed or did not have the resources at the time to devote to

69
Foucault 1972:129.
70
Derrida 1995: 1-5.
71
Mark Rowe has similarly argued that sectarian research centers at Buddhist universities are “not merely
reflective of the problems facing contemporary Japanese Buddhism but also constitutive of how a given
sect as a whole fashions its responses, and, in turn, impacts local temple practices” making them “key
sites in the production of Japanese Buddhism” (2011: 179). Sectarian research centers are often the
managing organizations of university archives and thus Rowe’s argument is relevant here.
72
See Hayashi 2013, who first made this point.
18

historical preservation.
73
Further, it risks perpetuating the curated version of these institutions’
histories.
Regarding the former, to a degree this is baked into the research design of the current
project and will thus rely on future studies to create a fuller picture of the institutional
experiments—failed, middling, and successful—within Buddhist higher education in modern
Japan. Still, I have sought to contextualize these case-studies within broader historical,
institutional, and intellectual developments whenever possible. In addressing the latter point
about the risk of perpetuating institutionally curated version of events, much of my time in the
universities’ archives was spent verifying details from events and searching the margins for
additional detail or insight not found in the official histories. This study also makes use of
personal narratives such as memoirs and correspondence to balance the institutional perspective
with that of the individual.
This dissertation employs two sociological frames to illuminate previously unseen forces
and mechanisms at work in the emergence of these Buddhist universities. The first is
professionalization theory to help us understand changes to the priesthood. As Miura Shū,
74

James Ketelaar,
75
and others have observed, the Meiji period signaled an important transition for
the Buddhist priesthood from a status to a profession.
76
But just what is meant by the term
“profession” and the process through which this transition unfolded is underexamined in the

73
Studies about failed institutions in this period are rare. See Iwata 2016 for an excellent case study of
one failed institutional project, Takanawa Bukkyō University (1902-1904) affiliated with the Nishi
Honganji Jōdo Shin sect.
74
Miura 2014: 210.
75
Ketelaar 1993: 215.
76
The terms used here are mibun 身分 (status) and shoku 職 (profession).
19

current literature. For this, works within the field of sociology on professionalization theory can
be instructive.
Along with doctors and lawyers, the clergy is widely accepted within this field of study
as an “established profession,” implying its long tenure within the professional class and the
consensus among scholars about its status as a profession regardless of the criteria one uses.
Taxonomies vary by scholar, but many include some combination of the following: (1)
specialized knowledge or technical expertise acquired through extensive training, (2) ethical
codes, (3) norms governed by professional associations, (4) a service ideal or orientation, and (5)
established trust and authority within the wider community.
77
While all of these qualities can be
found in the pre-Meiji era Buddhist priesthood, the events of the Meiji reformation called into
question each of these elements of the profession. This forced Buddhist sects to reevaluate and
renegotiate the priesthood’s claim to professional autonomy, influence, and prestige among the
general populace. The transition to the Meiji period reveals the shortcomings of solely
definitional questions and instead demands an examination of the dynamic relationship between
a profession, its practitioners, and the broader social structure.
78
Accordingly, this study adopts a
process-oriented approach to highlight the ways in which the modernization of Buddhist higher
education was a critical piece of the (re)professionalization of the priesthood for a globalizing
and modernizing Japan.
This dissertation also utilizes the ideas of “new institutionalism” to aid in understanding
institutional change within Buddhist higher education. New institutionalism is an umbrella term
applied to a spectrum of theories across history, sociology, economics, and political science; all

77
For a survey of these early taxonomical studies, see Wilensky (1964), Goode (1969), and Moore
(1970).
78
Klegon 1978: 268.
20

are concerned with the relationship between institutions and individuals, the way institutions
shape individual behavior, and the way individuals exert agency and influence on institutions.
One of the central questions in the sociological stream of new institutionalist scholarship is
concerned with explaining “global isomorphism,” or the replication of institutional formats
(museums, prisons, hospitals, universities, etc.) across diverse global contexts. This frame
provides an important tool as we seek to understand the introduction of the Western university
model into Meiji Japan and the ways in which institutions create and perpetuate legitimizing
myths that actors (in our case Buddhists) often employ for their own ends. Recently, discursive
institutionalism has served to illustrate the active role agents play in translating institutions, a
critique of earlier, more passive characterizations of institutions as abstractly diffusing. As
mentioned above, in addition to the explanatory value these methodologies bring to my own
fields of Buddhist Studies and the study of Japanese religion, I hope that engagement with these
frames serves as a bridge between my own fields, sociology, and higher education historians.

Chapter Overview
The botanical metaphor running throughout this dissertation underscores the relationship
between each of the chapters, revealing a process by which the modern priesthood was cultivated
within these universities.
79
The four chapters of this study are divided into two parts. Part I
centers on the history of Buddhist higher education from an institutional level. Since the thrust of

79
Botanical metaphors abound in Buddhist Studies. Often the different parts of a tree (roots, trunk,
branches, and blooms) are used to describe the relationship between Buddhism in Japan and Buddhist
elsewhere in Asia, or the relationship between Buddhism and other major traditions such as
Confucianism, Shinto, and Daoism (see for example, the preface in Anesaki 1910 and Tsuji 1984:306). In
other cases, the metaphor of a botanical graft is used to describe the transplant of ideas or traditions
to/from Buddhism (see Tanabe 2005 and Mohr 2014).
21

the argument in subsequent chapters relies on identifying the novel developments to Buddhist
higher education in the Meiji period, the central work of the first chapter is to establish historical
context from the preceding era, the Tokugawa Period (1600-1868). This was a time of immense
development for education at the local, regional, and national levels, yet scholarship on Buddhist
educational institutions in this period lags behind even the Meiji period. Drawing from writings
of intellectuals, government documents, and temple records, I reconstruct what institutional
forms of Buddhist education looked like in the Tokugawa period. Buddhist higher education at
this time consisted of decades-long doctrinal studies and ritual training. Though non-Buddhist
subjects were introduced late in this period, offerings were sporadic. Still, these seminaries were
not the only form of education priests could receive. Private academies proliferated during this
time, teaching on a wide variety of subjects including medicine, astronomy, European languages,
and Chinese literature. I argue the wide prevalence of these academies laid the institutional and
cultural groundwork necessary for a successful private higher educational landscape (including
Buddhist universities) in the Meiji period.
In the second chapter, I explore aspects of the monastic curricula that expanded in the
Meiji era to include non-Buddhist subjects and argue these curricular shifts both reflected and
shaped a reimagining of the Buddhist priesthood to think beyond sectarian boundaries and
toward Buddhism’s place within the world religions. I use official university histories and
memoirs of Meiji period secular and Buddhist educators alike to investigate the debates that, at a
time when the future of Buddhism in Japan was far from certain, felt increasingly high stakes.
This chapter also includes a detailed case study of the Institute for the Protection of the Dharma,
one of the earliest experiments with curricular reform in the Japanese Buddhist world. At this
institute, fierce debates over curriculum created large rifts between progressive and conservative
22

factions. A final goal of this chapter is to compare curricular reforms occurring throughout
higher education both nationally and internationally to contextualize the Buddhist example.
In Part II, the focus shifts to individuals and their role in institutional change, asking, how
were these changes shaped by and experienced by individual student-priests and scholar-priests?
The third chapter examines student protests at Buddhist universities in the Sōtō and Jōdo Shin
sects to better understand the conflict and debates underpinning the birth of modern Buddhist
universities in the Meiji period. While Tokugawa period Buddhist seminaries were firmly
entrenched within the temple ecosystem, in the Meiji period we can detect an emerging distance
between Buddhist universities and their sects. Placed within the context of major reforms to
Buddhist higher education discussed in Chapter 2, it interprets student protests as indicators of a
growing intellectual autonomy within the newly established Buddhist universities. Intellectual
autonomy from the sects was a crucial step in nurturing a new kind of professionalized scholar-
priest, many of whom went on to make important contributions to the burgeoning field of
Buddhist Studies. Drawing from sociological theories on professionalization and new
institutionalism, this chapter views Buddhist universities as the center for professionalizing
Buddhist priests and expanding the notion of the “scholar-priest.”
Finally, Chapter Four investigates the modern metamorphosis of the Buddhist scholar-
priest by following the careers of three major figures: Hara Tanzan (1819-1892) of the Sōtō Zen
sect,
80
Nanjō Bunyū (1849-1927) of the Jōdo Shin sect,
81
and Mochizuki Shinkō (1869-1948) of
the Jōdo sect.
82
Reflecting different stages of Buddhist intellectual thought in the Meiji period,
the philosophical, philological, historical, and doctrinal innovations seen in the work of these

80
原担山
81
南条文雄
82
望月信享
23

men highlight key moments in the development of Buddhist Studies in Japan. In addition to their
research, each of these men floated between the imperial universities and Buddhist universities
and formed influential working relationships with secular scholars and scholar-priests alike.
Their activities reveal the role sectarian scholars at Buddhist universities played in the
establishment of scholarly networks and the production of Buddhist scholarship.

A note on institutional terminology
As sociologists David John Frank and John W. Meyer point out, the type of institution
indicated by the term “university” varies by time and place, noting, “there is plenty of
decoupling: some ‘universities’ adopt the name without the form, while others adopt the form
without the name. This follows from the fact that the idea of, and claim to, university status is a
dominant cultural refrain throughout the world.”
83
Beginning in Japan in the Meiji period, the
term daigaku was applied to the English term “university,” although daigaku was a term given to
earlier institutions of higher learning dating as far back as the eighth century.
84
While both
“university” and daigaku have always referred generally to the highest level institution within an
educational system (however loosely that educational system may be defined), the nature and
purpose of those institutions were quite dissimilar until the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Therefore, to avoid an inaccurate conflation between the two, I do not use the term “university”
until the Japanese term takes on its modern connotation.

83
Frank and Meyer 2020: 23.
84
In China, this term dates back to the Zhou dynasty (c.1046-256 BCE).
24

Still more complicated is the array of terms given to Buddhist higher education
institutions during the Tokugawa and early Meiji period. These include, dangisho,
85

gakurinn/daigakurin,
86
gakujō,
87
gakuin.
88
Because the assignment of these terms says less about
the nature of the institution and more about the idiosyncrasies of the sect or the region or time
period in which it was founded, I have streamlined the English translations in the chapters by
time period. Institutions in the Tokugawa period are referred to as “seminaries” or “seminary
colleges.” In the Meiji period, schools will be referred to as academies. I use “university” only
once the school adopts the daigaku term; for most schools this takes place in the early twentieth
century.
As this is a dissertation regarding Buddhist education, the term “school” also poses
problems in its ambiguity. “School” is of course a general term for an educational institution, but
in the Buddhist context it is sometimes used as the translation for terms like “shū 宗” or “ha 派”
to indicate a lineage or branch within a Buddhist tradition. To minimize confusion, I translate
shū as “sect,” and ha as “denomination,” except in the case of the Chisan and Buzan Shingon,
which I refer to as “schools” to follow scholarly convention.

85
談義所 The literal translation is “place to lecture on the dharma” but it is a generic term for a Buddhist
seminary.
86
学林/ 大学林 This literally translates into “study forest.”
87
学場 This term means simply “study grounds”
88
学院 The second character in this compound can mean “temple” or “institution,” making this term
“study temple” or “study institution.”
25

Part I: Institutions

26

Chapter 1.
Fertile Grounds: Understanding Buddhist Education in the Tokugawa Period
This chapter lays the groundwork for the rest of the study by establishing the state of
education, especially Buddhist education, leading up to the Meiji period. The field lacks a
comprehensive study of Tokugawa-era Buddhist education and therefore our understanding
about the intellectual trends and role of learning in Buddhist groups is incomplete.
89
This chapter
will focus on what we can know about the Tokugawa predecessors to our case study universities
from sources that survive within those institutions’ archives and official histories. As is common
throughout Tokugawa period studies, the number of sources and degree of detail in those sources
increases significantly toward the end of the period. Nevertheless, this chapter will sketch the
broad contours of major educational developments, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, starting
with the early Tokugawa period, and then examine a few more detailed sources available from
later in the period.
The first section explores the dominant educational institutions in Tokugawa Japan and
some of the major ideological trends of the period, namely, Neo-Confucian thought, Nativist
Studies,
90
Western learning, and Practical Studies.
91
These four serve as umbrella terms for

89
Saitō Akitoshi’s Research on the History of Buddhist Education in Japan 日本仏教教育史研究 (1978)
is, to my knowledge, still the most comprehensive work on Buddhist educational history. There are other
works that focus on individual facets of Buddhist education, such as preaching (Sekiyama 1975), the
effect of bakufu policy on Buddhist education (Tamamuro 1967), or particular institutions or sects (for
example, see Ambros 2008, Chapter 2, or Vesey 2003). Works on education in the Tokugawa period
beyond the Buddhist traditions include, in Japanese, Ishikawa Ken’s work on terakoya (Ishikawa 1960b)
and Yoshima Wajima’s work on the Shōheikō and domain schools (Wajima 1962). In English, see Passin
1965, Dore 1967, and Rubinger 1982.
90
kokugaku 国学
91
jitsugaku 実学
27

diverse ideological and intellectual movements, but this study focuses on the aspects of each that
most irked and inspired Buddhist seminaries. Next, we investigate the various modalities of
Buddhist education. That is, what exactly do we mean when we are talking about ‘Buddhist
education’? What kinds of norms, practices, relationships, and ideas are bound up in the term?
And how might different modalities of Buddhist education interact and inform one another? We
will focus on preaching, lecturing, debating, the master-disciple relationship, temple schools,
92

and Buddhist seminaries. A final section examines the institutional history, curricula, and student
life at early modern Buddhist seminaries in four sects: Jōdo Shin, Sōtō, Jōdo, and Tendai, and
identifies some commonalities found in the development of these seminaries. I argue that an
emphasis on doctrinal scholarship along with major institutional developments, provided fertile
ground for the social, intellectual, and institutional reforms to Buddhist education seen in the
Meiji period.

Tokugawa Educational Institutions and Ideas
The Official Schools: Shōheiko, Domain Schools, and Branch Schools
An important characteristic of Tokugawa period education, particularly when compared
with the Meiji period, is its decentralization. The main exception to the decentralized educational
landscape in the Tokugawa period was the academy for the shogunate known as the School of
Prosperous Peace, or Shōheikō.
93
Founded by Hayashi Razan
94
in 1630, the Shōheikō became
the official academy of the shogunate in 1690. As the most prestigious educational institution in
the Tokugawa period, it primarily served the Tokugawa shogunate and his retainers. The

92
terakoya 寺子屋
93
昌平黌
94
林羅山 (1583-1657)
28

curriculum was grounded in Shushigaku,
95
the Zhu Xi school of Neo-Confucian thought, and
focused on rearing moral leaders. Many of the Shōheikō graduates went on to head the domain
schools.
96
Hankō,
97
or domain schools, and the branch schools, gōkō,
98
were official institutions
founded for the purpose of educating regional samurai. Nearly all the 280 domains had a school,
though there was a wide variety of the number and quality among them.
99
The core curriculum
was Neo-Confucian, using Zhu Xi’s Commentaries on the Four Books as a core text. Courses
were also taught in Calligraphy, Composition, Nativist Studies, Japanese and Chinese History,
and Etiquette. Later in the Tokugawa period, curricula expanded in several schools to include
Dutch Studies (in 3 schools), Chinese and Western Medicine (45 and 12 schools respectively), as
well as English language and other Western studies (7 schools).
100
At the domain schools,
because maintenance of the social hierarchy was essential, attire and curricula was dictated by
each student’s social class and rank.
101

95
朱子学
96
More than one-third of domain school chairs were held by Shōheikō graduates (Ishikawa 1960: 202).
97
藩校
98
郷校
99
According to Ishikawa Matsutarō (1978: 29), there were over two hundred hankō in the Tokugawa
period, with the largest counts in the Chūbu (45 schools), Kinki (44 schools), and Kantō (38 schools).
Note: Ishikawa’s table includes figures for the first four years of the Meiji period, my totals represent the
numbers given, minus the Meiji schools.
100
Passin, 1965: 19; Ishikawa 1957: 265-266.
101
Passin 1965: 20. In some of the domain schools toward the end of period, commoners were allowed to
enroll, but were usually educated separate from the samurai students (See Rubinger 2014: 200).
29

Shijuku
For students of sufficient means and who showed interest in a particular subject, it was
common practice to attend a private academy, or shijuku.
102
Some academies had only a handful
of students. At others, like the late-Tokugawa Kangien,
103
the student body included samurai
seeking to supplement their official education and commoners. Over half of the instructors were
samurai,
104
many of whom began as domain school instructors and left to start their own
academies.
105
Buddhist priests and educated commoners also founded academies. There was no
accreditation process for teachers at these shijuku and most of the instructors ran the schools out
of their homes.
Richard Rubinger convincingly argues that shijuku as a social institution best
encompassed the spectrum of educational practices as well as the “transformation in the function,
meaning, and purpose of schooling” that took place over the course of the Tokugawa period.
106

One of the reasons private academies were able to affect schooling in this way is precisely their
private, or unofficial, status. Herbert Passin points out that their freedom from official oversight
allowed the shijuku to teach subjects not permitted at the official schools, making them in certain

102
私塾 Here I am borrowing Rubinger’s binary to delineate between official schools (i.e. government
supported) and private institutions (i.e. neither supported, nor regulated by the government). The term is
not meant to connote a special elite status, because though there were fees to attend, anyone who wished
to study at a shijuku with the means to do so could, and many did from throughout the social hierarchy.
See Rubinger 1982: 9-10.
103
咸宜園
104
Rubinger highlights that the high number of samurai serving as educators in the Edo period signaled
that education “had become an important field of endeavor for the warrior class” (1982: 12).
105
Passin 1965: 25.
106
Rubinger 1982: 8.
30

cases “centers of unorthodoxy.”
107
For example, a popular subject at these academies that would
have been prohibited in the official schools was the alternative school of Neo-Confucian thought,
known as Yōmeigaku
108
and its School of the Mind, or shingaku.
109

It is in the emergence and proliferation of private academies that we see some of the most
significant developments in Tokugawa period education, not only with the proliferation of
subjects offered, but also as spaces for the intermingling of social classes that served to challenge
the organization of society based on heredity. Schools like Hirose Tanso’s
110
Kangien was
founded on the belief that merit, not class, was the only way to meet the challenges of an
increasingly complex society. An outlier in size, nearly four thousand students attended the
Kangien during its seventy-year existence between 1801 and 1871.
111
At the Kangien, samurai,
Buddhist priests, and commoners from all levels of society were taught the same subjects in the
same spaces.
112
Rules were even implemented to prohibit ostentatious class markers like
elaborate clothing or having too many servants in one’s company.

107
Passin 1965: 24.
108
王陽明学
109
心学 Alternatively rendered “Learning of the Mind” or “Heart-mind.” This is the philosophy of
Chinese Neo-Confucian Wang Yangming (1472-1529). His most prominent adherents in Japan were
Nakae Tōju 中江藤樹 (1608-1648), who is considered the founder of Yōmeigaku in Japan, and
Kumazawa Banzan 熊沢蕃山 (1619-1691).
110
広瀬淡窓 (1782-1856)
111
Rubinger, 93.
112
Though precise figures are impossible to obtain because social class was not indicated on school
registers, scholars generally agree on the number of samurai and Buddhist priests, which are easier to
identify in the records based on naming conventions. Class registers indicate only a small percentage
(6.4%) of students were from samurai families. Roughly one-third (33.8%) of students were Buddhist
priests. It is harder to say anything about the social class of the remaining majority of students. (Rubinger
1982: 93; Rubinger cites his numbers from Inoue Yoshimi, “Kangien Nyūmon-sha ni tsuite no Kenkyū,”
Aoyama Gakuin Bungaku-bu Kiyō, no. 16, 1975)
31

In his memoir, Meiji-era education reformer Fukuzawa Yukichi
113
recalls his days as a
student at a prominent private academy run by Ogata Kōan in Osaka:
114
“Of course what each
student learned depended on his own native ability…for in this school no student was ever
promoted or graduated automatically after a number of years in residence. Each one was obliged
to work his way up by his own hard labor.”
115
Fukuzawa’s description of the meritocratic
environment of his school is intended as a critique of heredity-based promotion systems found in
other institutions like the Shōheikō and, more importantly for our purposes, Buddhist seminaries.
A major underlying force driving the emergence and proliferation of the shijuku in the
Tokugawa period is a gradual inversion of the social hierarchy. Specifically, over the course of
the Tokugawa period, the tendency within the ruling class to promote warriors based on the
status of one’s family rather than on merit or ability, resulted in a diminished public perception
of samurai.
116
In contrast, the merchant class, traditionally considered the lowest social group,
benefitted greatly from the economic growth of the Tokugawa period and this success bolstered
their societal influence.
117
This change posed a significant challenge to the kinship-based
education and promotion practices of the time and increased support for a more meritocratic
society. Increasing support for meritocracy, in turn, led to a greater demand for education for
those who had the time and means.
In part by embracing a more meritocratic and less socially rigid education, the shijuku
were more intellectually vibrant than the government schools. The shogunate schools, while

113
福澤諭吉 (1835-1901)
114
緒方洪庵 (1810-1863) Ogata’s school would eventually become Osaka University.
115
Fukuzawa 2007: 83.
116
As Andrew Gordon points out, the phrase “a daimyō’s skill” was used as an insult (Gordon 2013: 42).
117
Kassel 1996: 299.
32

symbolically significant, were not as impactful from the standpoint of Tokugawa educational and
intellectual history. That is to say, while the status of the Shōheiko meant that domain and branch
schools often sought to emulate its organizational structure and curriculum, the government
schools’ relationship with the shogunate, and its culture of prioritizing rank over ability,
constrained these schools and led to intellectual stagnation. Still, the Shōheiko’s position as the
university of the shogunate meant that its interpretation of Shushigaku and corresponding
curricula became the de facto orthodoxy. Even if as discussed above, this orthodoxy was weakly
enforced, its maintenance and preservation no doubt provided an additional constraint on the
development of new intellectual thought within its walls. This meant that, beyond the Buddhist
world, major intellectual developments of the Tokugawa period were primarily occurring outside
of official institutions, and instead were taking place in the more independent and
organizationally nimble private academies. As a result, members of the elite who sought a robust
education often hired private tutors or teachers from prestigious shijuku. Many Buddhist scholars
also supplemented their seminary education with specialized subject training at shijuku.
The failure of official institutions to keep pace with intellectual developments in the
Tokugawa period would prove a valuable lesson to the new Meiji government during their
efforts to overhaul higher education. The Meiji state leveraged their power and resources early
on to establish a national university system that could not be rivaled. Accordingly, the first
official university of the Meiji period, the University of Tokyo, combined the status of the
Shōheiko with the breadth and depth of curricula from the shijuku. The establishment of the
University of Tokyo placed formerly prosperous private schools and Buddhist seminaries in a
shared state of precarity, as they struggled not only to compete for faculty and students, but also
33

to adhere to an ever-changing set of accreditation requirements imposed on them by the Meiji
government.

The Polemics of “Practicality”
Along with changes to educational institutions in the early modern era, ideas about what
comprised an ideal education were changing too. One idea that preoccupied many scholars
beginning in the Tokugawa period and extending into the Meiji period was the notion of the
practical, or jitsu,
118
in a genre of learning called practical learning, or jitsugaku.
119
At a time
when different interest groups vied for dominance in the intellectual space, practical learning
became an important tool in asserting the superiority of one's own school of thought. Over the
course of the Tokugawa period, the subject of practical learning, once nearly synonymous with
Neo-Confucianism, mushroomed beyond its Neo-Confucian roots.
120

Practical Learning began as an element of Neo-Confucian thought in Song China (960-
1279). Neo-Confucian teachings reached Japan sometime in the Kamakura period (1185-
1333)
121
via Zen monks who brought back texts from China. Prior to that, Confucian teachings
and Buddhist teachings were often taught together at the academy of the court known as the
Daigakuryō,
122
and in Zen monasteries. But by the early Tokugawa, as the Shōheikō’s power
grew, leaders like Hayashi Razan sought to extract Neo-Confucian thought out from under
Buddhism's shadow.

118
実
119
実学
120
de Bary and Bloom 1979: 32.
121
鎌倉時代
122
大学寮
34

The central idea was that at the core of all knowledge and indeed all phenomena, is
reason, or ri
123
and that the investigation and observation of ri in all things was paramount.
Education was the primary tool through which observation of ri was put into practice. Jitsugaku
was a world-affirming movement and was in part a reaction against Buddhism’s other-
worldliness. That is, Buddhism was critiqued for its espoused skepticism toward language and,
by extension, scholarship, and more broadly for its rejection of certain social and cultural
institutions such as the family.
124
Neo-Confucian Yamazaki Ansai
125
argued, “The Way is the
three fundamental principles in human relations and the five cardinal virtues. Since the Buddha
abandoned these, his teaching cannot be the Way.”
126
Fellow Neo-Confucian scholar Kumazawa
Banzan echoed this sentiment when he explained that “there is no justification for entrusting
schools for human relationships to monks.”
127
Finally, Neo-Confucians like Anzai and Banzan
argued that a tradition based in denial or rejection of the self should not be responsible for what
was, in Neo-Confucians’ view, the ultimate self-cultivating exercise: education.
128

The combination of diverse educational institutions and relatively weak state orthodoxy
created opportunities for a proliferation of interpretations of practical learning and what should
be considered ‘practical.’ The highly orthodox Yamazaki Ansai argued for a narrow definition
based directly on Zhu Xi’s original intent of the term in which the practical and the moral were

123
理
124
de Bary and Bloom 1979: 8.
125
山崎闇斎 (1619 – 1682)
126
Okada in de Bary and Bloom 1979: 240.
127
de Bary et al. 2005: 171.
128
The critique of Buddhism as an anti-social or other-worldly enterprise goes back to Buddhism’s
inception and spread through Asia. Buddhists and Buddhist institutions have historically countered these
arguments by highlighting their involvement in pro-social activities such as education and medicine.
35

intertwined in all worthy scholastic pursuits. For Yamazaki, this meant a view of education that
relied almost exclusively on Zhu Xi’s writings and canon of the Confucian Classics.
129
On the
other hand were a group Janine Sawada labeled “eclectics”
130
such as Kaibara Ekken,
131
who
criticized Yamazaki’s narrow interpretation of the practical and instead argued for the inclusion
of technological subjects that would evolve over time. In this way, the label of jitsu came to be
used polemically such that one’s own group approach to learning was labeled ‘practical’ while
rival groups’ approach was viewed as empty.
In part, this ambiguity lies in the character jitsu itself.
132
Often translated as “practical,”
jitsu contains various meanings and senses including “substance,” “truth,” and “reality.”
Accordingly, scholars debated whether one school’s notion of jitsu was substantive (and by
extension practical), or empty (and thus, impractical). In other debates, the character’s nuance is
framed in terms of whether a kind of learning is “true” or “false.” Thus, when Yamazaki Ansai
wrote his famous treatise Refutation of Heresies
133
in 1647, he targeted Buddhism for their 'false'
teachings as a foil for Shushigaku's 'true' teachings. In fact, several prominent early scholars in
the Tokugawa period including Yamazaki Ansai, Fujiwara Seika,
134
and Hayashi Razan

began
their intellectual careers as Buddhists. Later, they were exposed to Neo-Confucian thought and
judged Neo-Confucianism to be the superior teaching citing its world-affirming practicality.

129
Though Yamazaki’s approach could be accurately described as primarily exegetical, it was not without
its real-world applications. Okada Takehiko for example highlights that it was Yamazaki’s writings that
introduced Zhu Xi’s system of grain storage to Japan that would significantly benefit efforts to curtail
famine in the Tokugawa period (Okada in de Bary 1979: 235).
130
Sawada 2004.
131
貝原益軒 (1630-1714)
132
実
133
Heki i 闢異
134
藤原惺窩 (1561 – 1619)
36

These three and many other Neo-Confucians in the Tokugawa period widely disseminated their
teachings in schools throughout Japan, inspired at least in part by Zhu Xi’s belief in universal
education, but also by opportunities for personal advancement.
Religious and secular educational institutions of the varieties discussed above— the
Shōheikō, the domain schools, shijuku, as well as Buddhist institutions like temple schools and
seminaries—experienced unprecedented growth in size and number. As Tokugawa society
became more complex, the demands for practical knowledge grew, along with the number of
opinions on the meaning of “practical.” For some thinkers like Kaibara Ekken, the concern for
practical learning spurred a quest for novel forms of knowledge; for others like Yamazaki Ansai,
this meant a stronger insistence on orthodoxy. The rise in practical learning gave birth to debates
over the ambivalent relationship between knowledge and morality, which carried on well into the
Meiji period.
By the end of the Tokugawa period, the idea of practical learning had shifted to such an
extent that it was juxtaposed with mainstream Neo-Confucian learning as a means to “redeem it
from elegant irrelevancy or vapid pedantry.”
135
The following assertion from early Meiji
intellectual Tsuda Mamichi offers one example of such thought from the latter half of the
nineteenth century:
136

There is empty learning ( 虚学 kyogaku) that is devoted to such lofty doctrines as
nonexistence and Nirvana, the five elements and the principles of human nature, or
intuitive knowledge and intuitive ability. And there is practical learning that solely
explains factual principles through actual observation and verification, such as

135
de Bary 1979: 24.
136
津田真道 (1829-1903)
37

astronomy, physics, chemistry, medicine, political economy, and philosophy of the
modern West. We may call a society truly civilized when the reason of each individual
has been illumined by the general circulation of practical learning throughout the land.
137

Here, Tsuda characterizes what he calls “intuitive” subjects, including allusions to
Buddhism and Confucianism, as “empty,” and contrasts that with practical learning subjects,
such as the hard sciences and Western subjects, that he explains rely on “factual principles” and
“verification.” That this preoccupation with the practicality of education endured into the Meiji
period, even as the polemical targets shifted with the changing educational landscape,
demonstrates how central this issue was to education in Japan. While Tokugawa-era Buddhist
seminary curricula did not regularly include jitsugaku, it was nevertheless an important polemic
that confronted Buddhist intellectuals. The next chapter examines increasing popularity of
jitsugaku in the curricula of emerging Buddhist academies and universities in the Meiji period.
Another source of debate had to do with the proper role of texts in learning. Mainstream
Neo-Confucian thought touted the importance of the wisdom of the written word. This approach
was characterized by a close exegetical analysis of the Chinese classics. Yamazaki Ansai was a
prominent figure on this side of the debate, famously saying to students, “Don’t be proud of your
originality. The books written by the Sages never left anything out.”
138
As the founder of the
largest school for Shushigaku in the Tokugawa period, Yamazaki’s insistence on proper
understanding of the classics and distrust of any ideological deviation cloaked as innovation
impacted the educational landscape to a large extent. For instance, this emphasis on classic texts
led to increased publication and proliferation of these texts at a level never before seen in Japan’s

137
This passage is a modified version of William Reynold Braisted’s 1976 translation of the Meiroku
Zasshi 明六雑誌 modified by Janine Sawada in Sawada (2004: 95).
138
Yamazaki as quoted in Okada in de Bary 1979: 239.
38

history. The Shōheikō alone oversaw the publication of approximately 200 such texts in the late
Tokugawa period.
139

Over the course of this same period, however, critics of the textualist approach grew in
number. Among these critics were eclectics like Kaibara Ekken who believed knowledge should
be a product not of blind adherence, but of creative experimentation and broad inquiry. In
addition to works on the classics and Neo-Confucian thought, Kaibara wrote on subjects as
varied as linguistics, herbology and botany, medicine, and geography. He argued that a healthy
skepticism of dogma and a willingness to learn both from one’s own experience and even the
‘lowly’ subjects such as horticulture, proverbs, and farming was the path to rational and
objective knowledge.
140
Thus, while texts were important tools for learning for Kaibara, they
were not to be studied to the exclusion of personal observation and other forms of learning.
Kaibara and Yamazaki’s interpretation of the “practical” in practical learning thus represents two
poles in the debate over the term.

Ancient Learning and Nativist Studies
A discussion of Tokugawa education would not be complete without at least a brief
mention of the Ancient Learning
141
and Nativist Studies schools.
142
Starting in the seventeenth
century, early ancient learning scholars like Itō Jinsai
143
claimed that philological missteps over
Confucianism’s history in both China and Japan, including the Song reforms that produced Neo-

139
Sawada 2004: 13.
140
Okada in de Bary 1979: 271.
141
Kogaku 古学
142
Kokugaku 国学 This is alternatively rendered “National Learning.”
143
伊藤仁斎 (1627-1705)
39

Confucianism, obscured the higher truths of the Confucian classics.
144
In other words, proper
Confucian learning required the ‘un-learning’ of contemporary concepts, terms and
interpretations, and a restoration of Confucian teachings as they were originally intended. In Itō’s
school, the Hall for the Study of Ancient Meanings, or Kogi-dō,
145
students read only Confucius
and Mencius and rejected later developments in Confucian thought. In his quest for a ‘pure’
Confucianism, Itō also criticized the Song Neo-Confucians for being corrupted by Buddhist and
Daoist beliefs.
Nativist Studies began in the seventeenth century and blossomed in the eighteenth
century. Building on this logic of a ‘lost’ teaching in need of recovery, it was an intellectual and
cultural movement to ‘reclaim’ a Japanese essence through careful study of Japanese texts such
as the Man’yōshū.
146
Nativist scholar Kada no Azumamaro
147
argued the following in a petition
to the shōgun in 1728:
Everywhere now, Confucian studies are followed, and every day the Buddhist teachings
flourish more. ‘Humaneness’ and ‘rightness’ have become household words; even
common soldiers and menials know what is meant by the Classic of Odes. In every
family they read the sutras; porters and scullery maids can discuss Emptiness (shunyata).
The people’s manner of living has benefited by great advances, but our National Learning
is gradually falling into desuetude.
148

144
Burns 2003: 51.
145
古義堂
146
万葉集
147
荷田春満 (1669-1736)
148
de Bary et al. 2005: loc. 13307.
40

Kada reveals in this statement the anxiety felt by many nativist scholars—that Japan’s cultural
essence had been buried under the weight of foreign influence, both Buddhist and Confucian,
and that without intervention, the Japanese people would one day lose their history and
identity.
149

When considering the factors that contributed to the growth of Nativist Studies, Peter
Nosco posits that the rise of shijuku during the Tokugawa period may have played an important
role, as “one part of a burgeoning popular culture that redefined the relationship between the
producers and the consumers of culture” and as a way for opportunistic scholars to make
financial gain as instructors of a national heritage.
150
His point is bolstered by the mention in
Kada’s quote above that sutras are read in “every family,” alluding to the rising literacy rates and
education levels in this period. By the nineteenth century, nativist ideology helped inform the
movements that would eventually end the shogunate and launch Japan into the Meiji era. Nativist
scholars would also become powerful anti-Buddhist voices in the early Meiji period, leading to
events like the haibutsu kishaku movement.
But this fundamentalist approach to scholarly discourse was not exclusive to ancient and
Nativist Studies.
151
Tokugawa-era Buddhism possessed strains of this fundamentalism too, as
can be seen in reformers such as the Shingon monk, Jiun Sonja,
152
who mastered Sanskrit in an

149
Recent scholarship by Mark Teeuwen (2013) and Emi Foulk Bushelle (2019) have begun to challenge
the characterization of nativism as strictly reactionary, but rather that its origins can be found within
Buddhism itself. Teeuwen argues that kokugaku’s nativism has roots in medieval esoteric Buddhist circles
and Bushelle locates the foundation of Motoori Norinaga’s nativist thought in the Buddhist waka poetic
tradition.
150
de Bary et al. 2005: loc. 13186.
151
Nosco 1984: 18.
152
慈雲尊者 (1718-1804)
41

effort to uncover the original meaning of Buddhist texts. Sōtō Zen monks Manzan Dōhaku
153
and
Menzan Zuihō
154
led sectarian reforms to align Sōtō governance, transmission, and ritual
traditions with Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō.
155
Tetsugen Dōkō,
156
an Obaku Zen monk, was the first in
Japan to produce a woodblock of the entire Chinese Buddhist canon, and the Tendai monk
Myōryū Jizan
157
attempted a revival of the monastic vinaya precepts within Tendai Buddhism
that had long been using the more universalized bodhisattva precepts. These are just a few
examples of the kinds of revivalist efforts and fundamentalist concerns that ran through Buddhist
circles in the Tokugawa era.
158
These efforts only intensified in the Meiji period when Western
religious studies scholars questioned whether Mahāyāna Buddhism could be viewed as an
‘authentic’ Buddhist teaching given the dearth of Mahāyāna Buddhist texts in India and the
paucity of East Asian Buddhist groups with Śākyamuni Buddha as their central figure.

Modalities of Buddhist Education
The historical buddha, Śākyamuni, is differentiated from previous “awakened ones,”
known as pratyeka (solitary) buddhas, because he taught. Since Buddhism’s inception the sangha

153
卍山道白 (1636-1714)
154
面山瑞方 (1683-1769)
155
On Jiun, see Watt in Nosco “Jiun Sonja (1718-1804): A Response to Confucianism within the Context
of Buddhist Reform.” On Manzan, see Bodiford 1991. On Menzan, see Riggs 2004.
156
鉄眼道光 (1630-1682). On Tetsugen, see Baroni 2006.
157
妙立慈山 (1637-1690)
158
Buddhist revivalist movements, especially precept revival movements, were not new in the Tokugawa
period and can be found in the medieval and classical periods too. The characteristics of each movement
reflect the social, political, and intellectual crosscurrents unique to their respective periods, but tend to
arise at least in part in response to internal and external critiques of monastic laxity, degeneration, or
corruption.
42

and Buddhist institutions have always been engaged in education. The focus of this study,
Buddhist seminaries, represent only one of the modalities within the wider category of “Buddhist
education” in the early modern period. While acknowledging the opaque boundaries between
categories, this section will identify some of the characteristics of five types of Buddhist
education: (1) master-disciple relationships, (2) preaching and lecturing, (3) debating, (4) temple
schools, or terakoya, and (5) seminaries. Though not an exhaustive list, these broad educational
categories span all levels of society from commoner to elite, and all levels of Buddhist adherence
from casual to the deeply committed. This discussion will help to clarify Buddhist seminaries’
place within the educational landscape and identify what kinds of overlaps existed between
modalities.
Buddhist education took its elemental shape in the master-disciple relationship when the
Buddha taught the Dharma to his disciples.
159
In Japan, the Zen and esoteric sects have
especially given the master-disciple relationship great import.
160
The role of the master in Zen is

159
In India, the tradition of religious education via a teacher, or guru, predates Buddhism by a few
centuries to the Upaniṣadic path of knowledge (jñāna), in which a teacher instructs a disciple on the true
nature of reality. As Buddhism spread through East Asia, several schools developed with a strong
emphasis on master-disciple relationships. For instance, in Tibet, worship of one’s teacher (lama) became
part of the tradition along with the addition of lamas as the “fourth refuge” to the more common three
refuges of the Buddha, Dharma, and sangha (Strong 2017: 137). On Tibetan lamas see also Snellgrove
2002:176-180.
160
In Keta Masako’s comparative work between Sōtō Zen and Jōdo Shinshū understandings of the
teacher-student relationship, she highlights a key distinction between the two. The teacher-student
relationship in Zen culminates in the destruction of the relationship. By contrast, in Jōdo Shinshū the only
true ‘teacher’ is the Pure Land teaching itself and any human teacher is only considered so from the
perspective of the student. From the teacher’s perspective, they are merely a fellow practitioner of the
Pure Land teaching, relying on the Buddhist concept of “other power” (tariki 他力) for liberation. Thus,
unlike the Zen case, the teacher-student relationship is never mutually established but nor is it ever
destroyed. Instead, it remains for the student in perpetuity. See Keta 1992: 44-48.
43

to create scenarios and challenges that nudge the disciple toward their own enlightenment. In the
esoteric traditions, the master serves as a gatekeeper of secret ritual knowledge that they transmit
to disciples when they demonstrate readiness. In both cases, skilled Buddhist masters are
described as using hōben,
161
or skillful means, to provide guidance tailored to a disciple’s precise
spiritual level and ability. In educational terms, we can think of this as a pedagogical approach
that emphasizes individualized instruction. This bears relevance for our larger study of Buddhist
universities because the tradition of individualized instruction was often in tension with the
institutionalized format of seminaries and later, universities.
Further, the master-disciple relationship traditionally relied to a large extent on the oral
transmission of teachings, but the rise in the number and authority of Buddhist seminaries in the
Tokugawa period occurred in tandem with the rise of publication and circulation capacities
throughout Japan, and with this, a focus on text-based learning.
162
In the case of Zen, the master-
disciple relationship was not only a matter of transmitting the teachings but also one of
successorship. That is, master-disciple transmission served as a mechanism for ensuring a
dharmic heir to inherit the master’s temple.
163
The rise of seminaries within the Sōtō Zen sect
gave rise to a scholasticism that not only shifted educational modes beyond the individualized
instruction of the master-disciple relationship, but also spurred a critical reexamination of the
doctrinal basis for transmission and succession practices.
164

161
方便. In Sanskrit, upāya.
162
Riggs 2004: 7.
163
The issue of successorship was not always clear cut, however. William Bodiford writes about the early
Tokugawa practice in Sōtō circles in which priests would switch dharma lineages to inherit a temple. See
Bodiford 1991.
164
See Bodiford 1991.
44

Beyond the relationship between masters and disciples, one of the primary activities
Buddhists engaged in was preaching and lecturing. There are many Buddhist terms for both
preaching and lecturing,
165
and in English too, they bear important distinctions. “Preaching”
commonly carries the nuance of being oriented to the public. In Buddhism, this is a meritorious
act done with the aim of proselytizing and soliciting patronage. Throughout Buddhism’s history
in Japan, preaching has taken many forms, often mixing Buddhist teachings with images, local
lore, and indigenous gods to make the content more accessible and relevant to local audiences.
Preaching was not only done by establishment Buddhists, but also by itinerant, privately
ordained priests roaming the countryside. From early in the Tokugawa regime, these formerly
independent priests were required to affiliate with a temple under the bakufu’s new head and
branch temple system,
166
and the regularity of new edicts aimed at circumscribing privately
ordained and itinerant priests’ behavior suggests both that they were difficult to contain and also
perceived as a threat to the bakufu.
167

165
Sekkyō 説教 is one of the more general terms for “preaching,” but the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism
lists more than twenty terms for preaching and expounding the dharma including shodō 唱道 and kanke
勸化, both of which carry a sense of preaching for the purposing of conversion. On sekkyō, see Sekiyama
1989. Other terms such as hōdan 法談, dangi 談義, and kōen 講演 are used often in clerical educational
settings and have the sense of a lecture on the dharma for monastic audiences. In Japan, one of the oldest
forms is kōkyō 講経, or “to lecture on the sutras.” This style was presentational, with the priest glossing
the words of the Buddha. Another style, shōdō 唱道 (translates literally as “to recite and guide”), was a
popular form beginning in the medieval period. Shodō was more performative, utilizing allegories and
other non-canonical stories. In shodō it is the preacher’s words, rather than the Buddha’s, that are central;
sutra passages were used to reinforce or elucidate the main message of the preacher (see Harrison 1992:
14). Pictorial storytelling, or etoki, was yet another influential form of preaching, conducted by both
temple priests and itinerant monks and nuns (see Kaminishi 2006).
166
honmatsu seido 本末制度
167
See Kasahara 2009: 363-366.
45

Temple priests also engaged in lecturing, a term that connotes the transmission of
knowledge from teachers to monastic or lay patron audiences. Typically, lectures engaged with
Buddhist sutras and scholarly commentary and were more academic than most styles of
preaching. Lectures also accompanied many rituals, such as the Jōdo sect’s ritual of reciting the
name of the Buddha one million times,
168
as well as funerals, and memorials. Despite semantic
and pedagogical differences between preaching and lecturing, the boundaries between the two
were frequently blurred. For instance, in the early modern era performative genres of lecturing
become critical links between the scholarly doctrinal work produced by burgeoning sectarian
seminaries and the laity.
169
Tokugawa period sermons and sermon manuals
170
show how the
doctrinal reforms taking place within institutional Buddhism and rooted in the seminaries, were
rearticulated for the purpose of proselytizing.
171
This link between scholarly and practical
concerns of Buddhist scholarship is important context to consider when examining the seminary
case studies and a theme that carries into the Meiji period. Finally, Buddhists’ expertise in the
realm of preaching and lecturing proved crucial in the early Meiji period, when the nascent Meiji
government’s effort to promulgate its state ideology was significantly bolstered by Buddhist
priests’ proficiency in preaching.

168
hyakumanben nenbutsu 百万遍念仏. Saito argues that these kinds of lectures attached to rituals were a
major form of popular education during the Tokugawa period (Saito 1978: 195).
169
A recent dissertation by Matthew Hayes looks at this intersection of clergy-lay ritual space that took
place during ceremonial lectures, kōshiki 講式, in early modern Shingon temples (Hayes 2020). For a
discussion of the overlap between educational lectures and performance in medieval Chinese Buddhism,
see Kieschnick 1997: 121-122.
170
sekkyōbon 説教本
171
Harrison 1992: 2. Harrison mentions that Ōtani University scholar Kashiwahara Yūsen compiled a list
of over 1000 Tokugawa-period sekkyōbon but to my knowledge this list was never published.
46

Debating is another Buddhist educational mode that dates to the time of the historical
Buddha.
172
José Cabezón places early Indian Buddhist debates within a larger literary theme of
“contests,” within which there are verbal contests and magical ones. The former includes
doctrinal and philosophical debates; the latter are displays of magical abilities by the Buddha and
other sages.
173
In philosophical debates between a Buddhist and a non-Buddhist, often a Brahmin
in the case of Cabezón’s study, the Buddhist uses his “perspicacity” to lay bare his opponent’s
heterodoxy.
174
In the Great Debate narratives that are the subject of Cabezón’s work, this
perspicacity functions as evidence of the penetrating insight Buddhists possess as a result of their
practice, and this quality is deemed superior to displays of magical ability.
Throughout Japanese Buddhism but especially the Tendai sect, debating was a core
pedagogical tool.
175
Unlike the accounts of early Indian debates, however, monastic students
early in their training in Japan’s seminaries were not expected to possess the advanced level of
insight seen in the famed early Indian Buddhist monks. Paul Groner’s work on debates as
monastic training in medieval Tendai Buddhism looks at the progression of debate curricula for
student priests. In Groner’s case study, students were asked early in their education to read,

172
See Alberto Todeschini’s University of Virginia doctoral dissertation “Debating Buddhists: The
Abidharmasamuccaya on Debate and Argumentation” (2011) for an extended study of debate in ancient
and classical Indian Buddhism.
173
Cabezón 2008: 73.
174
As Cabezón points out, these two categories are not always distinct. In many cases a doctrinal debate
will include a display of magic by the victor as a confirmation of their superiority against their challenger
(Cabezón 2008: 81).
175
For a study of state-sponsored Buddhist debate as a tool for clerical career advancement, see Sango
2011.
47

memorize, and explicate selected texts through debate.
176
Later in their training, students were
expected to debate and defend doctrinal positions by drawing from multiple texts.
177
Groner
argues that debating sharpened students’ understanding of Buddhist doctrine, and allowed them
to apply gained insights in their preaching and individual practice.
178
The centrality of debate in
Tendai education continued into the Tokugawa period, made clear by the case study in the next
section. Like preaching and lecturing, debating was vital for Buddhists in the transition to the
Meiji period, when their critics were emboldened and new rivals emerged. In the next chapter,
we will look at how these longstanding debate practices were adapted for the Meiji era.
Terakoya, or “temple schools,” so named because some of the earliest versions of these
schools met on the grounds of Buddhist temples, began as places that provided foundational
education to young novices. At the end of the Heian period (794-1185),
179
lay children, that is,
children who were not novices training to become monks, began to be permitted to enroll in
temple schools, though they were educated separately from novices.
180
By the middle of the
Tokugawa period, the popular Illustrated Sino-Japanese Encyclopedia
181
was using a word for
monastery, shōja,
182
to describe the act of studying. Saito Akitoshi argues this detail
demonstrates the widespread diffusion of temple education among private households.
183

176
Groner’s study looks at medieval Tendai monastic educator Jitsudō Ninkū 実導仁空 (1309-1388) and
his system for the intellectual training of student monks.
177
Groner 2011: 257.
178
Groner 2011: 257.
179
平安時代
180
Saito 1978: 196.
181
Wakan Sansai Zue 和漢三才図絵
182
精舎
183
Saito 1978: 196.
48

In part because of the varying degree of formality of these institutions, it is difficult to
accurately capture the number of terakoya over the duration of the Tokugawa period.
Nevertheless, scholars have attempted to calculate rough estimates based on available sources
gathered in the Meiji period.
184
The number of these schools remained modest in the first half of
the Tokugawa period with fewer than two hundred prior to 1788. Beginning in the late
eighteenth century their numbers grew precipitously, exceeding ten thousand by the Bakumatsu
period.
185
The rising demand for terakoya can be understood as one result of the growing
complexity of the economy, which required and rewarded commoners with broader skill sets.
For instance, those in the farming and merchant classes were taught arithmetic, including how to
use an abacus, reading, and writing. Importantly, if girls in the Tokugawa period were educated,
they were usually educated at terakoya, as very few of the shijuku accepted girls. Perhaps
because much of the demand for terakoya came from the merchant and farming classes, farmers
and merchants made up the largest percentage of instructors (39.8 percent), followed by samurai
(25.7 percent), Buddhist priests (18 percent), doctors (8.9 percent) and Shinto priests
(approximately 7.5 percent).
186

Beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic, a major role terakoya played was in instilling
social norms and expectations to reinforce the social hierarchy. Many terakoya taught a basic
introduction to Neo-Confucian values via Zhu Xi’s Elementary Learning,
187
The Four Books (of

184
Ishikawa Ken, a historian of Japanese education, did much of this work. He used the data collected by
Meiji bureaucrats published in the Nihon Kyōiku shi Shiryō (1892). See Ishikawa 1960b.
185
Ishikawa 1960b: 86-87.
186
Data from percentages are rounded to the tenth place.
187
小学
49

Neo-Confucianism),
188
and the Classic of Filial Piety.
189
Another popular text in the terakoya
was Dōjikyō,
190
or “Teachings for Children,” thought to be written by a Tendai Monk from the
early Heian period, Annen.
191
The content of Dōjikyō combines aspects of Buddhist and
Confucian worldviews, stressing respect for teachers, filial piety, language arts, and etiquette. It
quotes passages from the Confucian Analects and Book of Odes.
After attending a terakoya, some students from wealthier families could further their
education at a local private academy (shijuku), while in other cases students travelled outside
their domain to study at specialized private academies.
192
For most who received formalized
education in this period, however, a terakoya was the first and last stop.
193
Whether and to what
degree we can generalize about the Buddhist nature of these schools in the Tokugawa and Meiji
period, however, is much less clear. Scholars have pointed to the absence of explicitly Buddhist
teachings in the curricula and even in the moral texts such as the Dōjikyō, noting instead its
heavy reliance on Confucian principles.
194
In Japanese scholarship, terakoya are classified as a
type of “secular education.”
195
This is because, as we have already discussed, many of these
‘temple schools’ were not taught in temples or by priests. Further, scholars have argued it was
the more ‘practical’ subjects and not the moral course that drove the terakoya boom in the latter

188
四書
189
孝経 See Dore for more examples of texts used in terakoya (1967: 275).
190
童子教
191
安然 (841-915?). Though Annen is thought to be the author, the oldest extant copy of this text is from
1377 and it does not appear to have been widely circulated until the Tokugawa period (Saito 2013: 2-3).
192
Terakoya outnumbered the number of shijuku by a factor of ten. See Rubinger 1985: 5.
193
Though not universally so, it was also possible for wealthy students to bypass terakoya and begin their
studies with private tutors or at shijuku.
194
See Saito 1978: 198, Tucker 1989, and Sawada in de Barry 2008: 244.
195
世俗教育 See for Ishikawa Ken 1960b and Ishikawa Matsutaro 1978.
50

half of the period.
196
Nevertheless, as the most common form of education in early modern
Japan, terakoya laid an important institutional foundation for the Meiji government’s universal
education movement in the second half of the nineteenth century. This was acutely visible in the
1870s after the Meiji government laid out the national education system and struggled to meet
their goal to build over 50,000 elementary schools. Buddhist groups stepped in to provide space
in their temples to serve as temporary school buildings and provided teachers to meet a growing
teacher shortage.
In contrast to terakoya, Buddhist seminaries, or training temples, were where priests
engaged in academic study of Buddhist texts and prepared for the duties of the priesthood.
Beginning with reforms enacted by Tokugawa Ieyasu, these seminaries were gradually
transformed over the course of the early modern era. The growth of seminaries was
representative of the seismic shift in relations between Buddhism and the state that marked the
transition to the Tokugawa period, as the shogunate sought to check Buddhism’s power through
increasingly stringent bureaucratic regulation. The government’s initial efforts were made for
individual sects, and included the regulation of the lecture and preaching content of ordained
priests, restrictions on the proselytization activities of seminary students and privately ordained
priests, and the establishment of the head and branch temple system, or honmatsu seido,
197
which
held smaller temples accountable to larger ones. These policies were later consolidated under a
comprehensive regulation of the sects, the Shoshū Jiin Hatto in 1665.
198

196
Rubinger 1982: 5-7. See also Ishikawa Ken 1960b: 63-64 and Ishikawa Matsutarō 1978: 132-133.
197
Note that for some sects this system was not new. For instance, the Tendai sect’s head and branch
temple system emerged in the Heian period, with Enryaku-ji 延暦寺 as the head temple.
198
諸宗寺院法度
51

The head-branch temple system also marked a departure from older lineage-based
structures dictated by the master-disciple relationship.
199
This shift was mirrored in the
seminaries, too, as sects designated or reaffirmed a central seminary with smaller seminaries
serving under the main institution. Seminaries proliferated and flourished in the Tokugawa
period. This rise was the result of new bakufu-imposed requirements for the education levels for
head priests,
200
including the mandate that academies serve as training centers for all priests. The
government’s aim was to limit the number of new priests sects could ordain and encourage
sectarian study over political engagement.
201
The bakufu wanted Buddhists out of the political
domain and viewed scholarship as a means to keep priests busy in their own affairs.
Accordingly, the bakufu sponsored the building and expansion of seminaries throughout the
Tokugawa period. This consolidation of sectarian policy, training, and organization also had the
effect of calcifying sectarian identities that would not be challenged in any major way until the
Meiji period brought on further government-mandated sectarian reforms and pan-sectarian
movements inspired in part by interactions with the Western religions.
202

199
Ambros 2009: 85.
200
For instance, Koji Shingon at Ōyama was governed by a 1609 edict that required a minimum of three
years of full-time study at an academy for abbacy, and upon completion of their studies, clerics were
granted the title nōke, or teacher. See Ambros 2008: 63.
201
Tamamuro 1967: 74; For a succinct summary in English of these regulations, see Kasahara 2009: 337-
338.
202
Some have sought to temper the scholarly tendency to characterize early modern Buddhist
organization and identity as highly sectarian, citing many examples of inter-sectarian institutional
relationships (see Ambros 2009) and trans-sectarian practices (see Williams 2005, especially Chapter 5).
While this chapter provides a broad overview across sects, this critique is important to keep in mind.
52

Tokugawa-era Buddhist Seminaries
A note on sources
Sources and specifics about clerical education in the pre- and early modern period are
sparse due to frequent fires that destroyed temples and seminaries.
203
Institutional histories
regularly bemoan the loss of records and texts to fires. The number of surviving records
increases around the turn of the nineteenth century, in part because Meiji era scholars made
efforts to write their own memoirs and recollections about the late Tokugawa period. Thus, we
know far more about early nineteenth century Buddhist education than we do about the centuries
preceding it. Komazawa University was also badly damaged by the Tokyo air raids during World
War II. Therefore, to the extent that the Komazawa University official history includes
information about pre- and early modern higher education, it is largely based on Meiji-era
recollections by prominent scholars, such as Hara Tanzan. His collected works was published in
1909 and circulated beyond Komazawa’s and the Sōtō sects’ private institutional holdings.
204

Accounts from lesser known, and hence less widely published, scholars were likely lost in the air
raids along with countless archival sources from the Meiji and Taishō periods.
For all the reasons just given, the case studies below do not provide a systematic or
complete picture of sectarian education in the Tokugawa era. Instead, we have glimpses of what
life was like inside the seminary walls, gleaned through list of textbooks, school ritual and
lecture calendars, and descriptions of student and faculty ranks. The case studies below focus
primarily on developments in the late Tokugawa period, especially the nineteenth century.
Source types range from the Meiji-era accounts mentioned above, to published records from

203
Fires noted in the Sōtō sources alone took place in 1657, 1712, 1718, 1740, 1771, 1774, 1778, 1784,
1790, 1811, and 1842.
204
Hara 1909.
53

head temples,
205
and other unpublished sources such as diaries,
206
some excerpted in the
universities’ official histories and others I collected from the universities’ archives.

Jōdo Sect
Institutional Overview
Formalized education in the Jōdo sect began in the early Muromachi period,
207
under the
leadership of the eighth patriarch Shōgei.
208
Prior to that, Jōdo sect priests had to receive their
training from Tendai or Shingon institutions in order to be formally recognized by the
government. Along with new standards imposed on transmission methods and doctrinal
interpretations implemented by Shōgei, the establishment of a seminary for Jōdo priests was a
crucial move toward legitimizing Jōdo as its own independent sect. This first seminary was
referred to as the Dangisho.
209
In the transition from the medieval to the early modern period,
bakufu regulations implemented the head-branch temple system for the Jōdo sect.
210
That
issuance from 1597 included a new title for teaching temples: danrin.
211

205
For example, the Ōtani denomination’s Honzan Kirokutei 本山記録綴.
206
To take another example from the Ōtani denomination, the Jōshu Nikki 上首日記 is a diary kept by the
dormitory leader. It is excerpted in the ODN but I came across similar diaries during my archival research
at the Taishō University archives. Many of these diaries were started and subsequently abandoned by their
authors or reduced to simply reporting the day’s weather. Occasionally, however, they provide useful
insight into daily life at these institutions.
207
室町時代 (1336-1573)
208
聖冏 (1341-1420)
209
談義所, translated literally as “place for doctrinal discussion.”This is commonly used as a generic term
for “Buddhist seminary” but to avoid confusing the Jōdo institution with the broader sense of the term, I
will refer to the Jōdo sect’s institution by its Japanese name, the Dangisho.
210
This was the Kantō Jōdo-shū Hatto 関東浄土宗法度.
211
談林
54

In 1615, Tokugawa Ieyasu directed the Jōdo Sect to designate eighteen schools in the
Kantō area. ‘Designate’ rather than ‘establish’ because the eighteen schools were comprised of
the most powerful teaching temples in the Kantō region including the Dangisho. Thus, the danrin
were not stand-alone schools, but rather teaching temples that now had an official designation
granted by the government. They were called the Kantō Jūhachi Danrin,
212
or the Eighteen Kantō
Seminaries, and they were responsible for educating priests from more than half of the Jōdo
temples in the Kantō region by the end of the first Tokugawa century.
213
While legally connected
under this consortium, they mostly operated independent of one another.
214
Five of these danrins
were in Edo and thirteen were situated in the surrounding countryside.
215
The danrins were
subject to more governmental oversight than their medieval predecessors such as enrollment
limits.
216
For example in 1685, the bakufu limited new enrollment to 210 monks spread across
the five Edo danrin.
217
This was in part because the bakufu were patrons of these particular
danrin and also due to the broader regulatory reforms enacted by the bakufu on Buddhist
institutions during this time designed to limit the power of Buddhist sects.
218

212
関東十八檀林
213
Kasahara, 358.
214
Udaka Yoshiaki, “ 関東十八檀林,” Jōdoshū Daijiten. Jōdoshū Zenshō, March 30, 2018.
http://jodoshuzensho.jp/daijiten/index.php/ 関東十八檀林.
215
TDR: 2.
216
Vesey 2003: 207-208.
217
Zōjō-ji 増上寺 was limited to 70 new students, Denzū-in 伝通院 was limited to 50, Reigan-ji 霊巖寺,
Banzui-in 幡随院 Reizan-ji 霊山寺 were each limited to 30 new students (TDR, 7).
218
See Udaka 1987: 93-100, Tamamuro 1967:44-49.
55

Student Life and Curriculum
Prior to entering a danrin, Jōdo monks began their education at a local temple where they
were exposed to the culture of daily life in the temple. This included instructions on chanting and
common rites as well as rules for dining and greetings.
219
Once a student completed their initial
training at the local temple, reached the minimum age of fifteen years old, and was able to
demonstrate familiarity with the three fundamental Pure Land texts,
220
they were eligible to
enroll in a danrin.
221
This signaled the transition to a more serious pursuit of Buddhist learning.
After seven to eight years, a student could apply to move on to the more advanced institution,
usually at a main temple or headquarters. The terms averaged two to three months in length and
each year had two terms for a total school year of four to six months.
The curriculum at these danrins was divided across eight courses.
222
Each course had its
own curriculum and took a minimum of three years to complete. Accordingly, it took at least
twenty-four years to reach the highest level. Completion of this training was required of all who
hoped to assume an abbacy and lead their own temple. At the first level, meimokubu, students

219
For more on this level of education, see Vesey 2003: 216.
220
The Longer Sutra (Muryōjukyō 無量寿経), Shorter Sutra (Amidakyō 阿弥陀経), and Contemplation
Sutra (Kanmuryōjukyō 観無量寿経) comprise the three central texts of the Pure Land Tradition.
221
Although the above qualified a novice for enrollment in a danrin, enrollment demand for the danrin
grew over the course of the Edo period. This demand was due to the danrins’ role as “feeder schools” for
the more prestigious central institutions at major temples or sectarian headquarters. Thus, in an attempt to
curtail demand, the sect created additional pre-requisites such as longer minimum times at local temples
and recommendation from an abbot. For more on this, see Vesey 2003: 212-215.
222
Here I am translating bu 部 as “course,” but note that these courses were sequential. The courses are as
follows: (1) meimoku-bu 名目部 (2) shōgi-bu 頌義 (3) sentaku-bu 選択部 (4) shōgengi-bu 小玄義部 (5)
daigengi-bu 大玄義部 (6) monku-bu 文句部 (7) reisan-bu 禮讚部 (8) raisan-bu 礼讃部. Though there
was a ninth level, mubu 無部, this was in name only as it indicated one had achieved mastery and
therefore did not have its own curriculum. See TDR: 4-6.
56

learned the classification system for the teachings of the Buddha that situated the Jōdo sect in the
most prestigious lineage. The courses became progressively more challenging, including
intensive study of the works of Hōnen (course 3) and Shandao (course 7) writings. The final
course contained no set curriculum because at this level one is believed to have mastered all
there is to learn in the Jōdo sect traditional curriculum. For those with time and interest, it was
possible to elect to study inter-sectarian texts (in this case, Buddhist texts that are not part of the
Jōdo sectarian tradition) or non-Buddhist texts. Students advanced through the courses with an
oral exam offered the spring and fall of each year. Classes contained lectures, discussion, and
debate.

Jōdo Shin Sect, Ōtani Denomination
Institutional Overview
The origins of higher education within the Ōtani denomination are traced back to the
denomination’s founding, a result of the forceful split of the Jōdo Shinshū sect into two sub-
sects: the Nishi Honganji and Higashi Honganji by the Shōgun in 1602. The split, designed to
weaken Jōdo Shinshū’s power, gave rise to the need to redefine sectarian doctrine and establish
orthodoxy within each new sub-sect.
223
It was through this need to evaluate and enforce
orthodoxy that Ōtani’s own sectarian studies was born. Not until 1665 did formal education of
young priests begin, when the Gakuryō, a seminary in Kyūshū’s Kanzeon-ji,
224
relocated to

223
ODN: 4.
224
觀世音寺 Kanzeon-ji. See McCallum 2008: 192-196.
57

Higashi Honganji’s Shōsei-en
225
in Kyoto.
226
In 1678, the Ōtani denomination’s first lecture hall
was erected. Doctrinal study at this time was led by instructors, two of whom we know to be
Ryōkai
227
and Ikyō.
228
By the middle of the eighteenth century, the student population had grown
large enough to necessitate a move to a new location on Takakura Road, and was thus renamed
Takakura Gakuryō.
229
Kōon-in Ekū
230
was the first instructor to be appointed at the new school
and is referred to in the Ōtani sources as the “founder” of the Gakuryō.
231

The new campus reflected more than a growing enrollment; it also signaled changes to
the way the school was administered.
232
Whereas previously the school was administered by
head temple officials, beginning with the Takakura Gakuryō, the school was overseen by its
instructors. The nature of instructors changed too. Prior to the Takakura Gakuryō, independent
scholar-priests travelled on their own lecture circuit. Now, scholars remained in residence and
were responsible for lecturing and administering the school year-round. The instructors
increasingly rose from within the ranks of the Gakuryō alumni. This new institutional structure
fostered an environment more closely resembling a seminary with an increasingly specialized
permanent faculty and a predetermined curriculum, explored further in the next section.

225
渉成園
226
Though the term “gakuryō” was associated with the Kanzeon-ji, the place of learning was more
commonly referred to as the “lecture hall” kōdō 講堂, “student dormitory” shokeryō 所化寮, or “long
house” onagaya 御長屋. This changed when the school was moved and reestablished as the Takakura
Gakuryō.
227
了海 (d.1674)
228
噫慶 (1641-1718). Some of Ikyō’s works include: 『九字十字尊号略弁解』, 『浄土論註聞書』
『弥陀所帰本仏鈔』. See Sasaki 1957 and Matsukane 2016.
229
高倉学寮. Established in 1755, this name remained until the early Meiji period.
230
光遠院恵空 (1644-1721)
231
ODN, 13.
232
Ikeda 1990.
58

Institutional growth during the Tokugawa period is recorded for both the main school, the
Takakura Gakuryō, as well as for the Ango,
233
a seasonal educational institution. The Ango was
a time for retreat and intensive study for many Buddhist groups, modeled on the monastic
retreats during India’s monsoon season that took place in early Buddhism. In the Ōtani
denomination, the Ango included a series of lectures hosted by the Gakuryō with both students
and outside participants, including visiting monks from other sects.
234
The first year for which an
overall enrollment count is given in the Ōtani sources is 1811, when the student population
numbered close to one thousand.
235
In 1826, seven new buildings were added to address a
chronic shortage of space in the Gakuryō. By this time, the numbers of students at the Gakuryō
reached one thousand five hundred, and one thousand seven hundred enrolled in the Ango. This
period of growth in the first half of the nineteenth century is also the period for which we have
more detailed extant records about the curricular content and daily life at the school that we will
turn to now.

Student Life and Curriculum
Records remaining from the peak of student enrollment at the Gakuryō provide
information about daily life in this period. One such record is an annual event calendar from the
Head Administrator of the Dormitory’s diary
236
in 1825. The full calendar is translated and
annotated in Appendix 2. Though the calendar starts in the first lunar month and ends in the

233
安居
234
These retreats allowed monastics the opportunity to study under different teachers “without necessarily
altering their original affiliation” (Baroni 2006: 5).
235
ODN, 19.
236
Jōshu ryō Nikki 上首寮日記.
59

twelfth month, it is perhaps more useful to think of the academic year beginning with the
summer. This is because the summer Ango was the most prestigious and well attended program.
It began in the fourth lunar month and closed at the end of the sixth lunar month.
237
Many
participants stayed at the Gakuryō into the fall term, but the Gakuryō experienced a marked
decline in students in the spring term, as many students did not return to the school after the New
Year’s holiday. The event calendar reveals that reading groups met three times that year each for
a few weeks at a time, though what was read is unknown. In addition to observing traditional
Buddhist holidays such as the ancestral festival of obon and the spring and autumnal equinoxes,
the Gakuryō also marked cultural festivals.
238

Subjects in the curriculum centered on the study of sectarian ritual and texts. Beginning
in the mid-eighteenth century, scholars at the Gakuryō also worked on producing the most
comprehensive Buddhist canon to date, by compiling, revising, and supplementing multiple
extant canons such as Tetsugen’s Obaku Canon.
239
Along with public lectures that were
occasionally attended by Buddhists outside the Ōtani denomination, the canon project is framed
in the ODN as a scholarly contribution made by Ōtani Buddhists to the wider Buddhist world.
Both the Gakuryō and the Ango occasionally taught non-Buddhist topics, such as Nativist
Studies and Neo-Confucianism. The first recorded instance of this was a lecture offered in 1824
titled “Introduction to Confucianism” at the Gakuryō. In 1831 records indicate that in one Ango

237
The majority of schools in Japan today begin the school year in the fourth month of the solar
(Gregorian) calendar.
238
These were the Five Seasonal Ceremonies, or gosekku 五節句. The five were: Mankind Day Jinjitsu
人日 (also known at the Feast of the Seven Herbs Nanakusa no sekku 七草の節句) the Doll Festival
Hinamatsuri ひな祭り, Boy’s Day Tango no sekku 端午の節句, the Star Festival Tanabata 七夕, and
the Chrysanthemum Festival Chōyō 重陽.
239
See Baroni 2006.
60

course students read and discussed the Nihonshoki. In 1863, during the tumultuous Bakumatsu
period, the institution offered a lecture on Christianity and Heliocentrism during the Ango. Aside
from these sporadic offerings, neither the Gakuryō nor the Ango offered courses or lectures on
non-Buddhist subjects with any regularity. The development of non-Buddhist curricula in
Buddhist higher education will be expanded in Chapter 2.

Tendai Sect
Institutional Overview
Schooling has been a central part of monastic training with the Tendai sect since its
establishment by Saichō
240
in the ninth century. In a series of three treatises on the regulation of
student monks dated to 818, Saichō laid out rules for daily sutra study and lectures, monastic
examination and promotion schedules, student quotas, curricula, study methods, tuition, student
discipline and punishments, and school administration.
241
In his “Regulations to Encourage
Tendai Yearly Ordinand Students,”
242
Saichō describes the first half of a twelve-year course for
intermediate students:
For the first six years, they will learn mainly through lectures. Secondary emphasis will
be placed on contemplation and the practice (of meditation). Each day two-thirds of their
students will concern Buddhism and one third will concern other subjects. Extensive
lecturing will be their training; preaching the Dharma will be their discipline.
243

240
最澄 (767-822)
241
Saito 1978: 19.
242
Kanshō Tendaishū Nenbun Gakushōshiki 勧奨天台宗年分学生式
243
Translated in Groner 2000: 133. The second half of the twelve-year course placed a greater emphasis
on meditation and contemplation than on textual study and lectures. Groner also notes that Saichō’s
writing did not include specifics on the non-Buddhist subjects to be studied, but that Chinese classics
61

Originally situated in western Japan near the imperial capital of Kyoto, by the medieval period
Tendai monks began to expand their influence and power eastward to the Kantō region. Scholar
Ogami Kanchu has verified the existence of sixty-one medieval Tendai seminaries called
dangisho, more than half of which were in the Kantō provinces.
244
Seminary education
emphasized doctrinal discussion, debate, and the (re)production of sutras, commentaries, and
teachers’ lectures in texts, themselves called dangi. Monks commonly traveled to the various
dangisho between the two centers of Tendai learning, Mount Hiei and the Kantō dangisho.
245
By
the late medieval period, what became known as Kantō Tendai rivaled Mount Hiei in scholarly
power. This was evident in 1571, when Oda Nobunaga destroyed the temples on Mount Hiei and
its surroundings, including the destruction of the sect’s headquarters, Enryaku-ji,
246
and the
Kantō seminaries restored Mount Hiei’s libraries and archives.
247

By the start of the Tokugawa period, the Tendai sect was in a considerably weakened
position due to the campaign by Oda Nobunaga.
248
The Tendai monk Tenkai,
249
who oversaw the

were likely studied. Importantly, while Saichō’s proposal was influential on monastic education, the full
plan was never implemented due to the impracticalities of a lengthy retreat and issues surrounding which
precepts would be used. See Groner 2011: 234-5.
244
Ogami Kanchu 尾上寛仲 (1960) “Chūko Tendai ni okeru dangisho 中古天台に於ける談義所,”
Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū 8 (1), cited in Stone 1999: 149.
245
Stone 1999: 150.
246
延暦寺
247
For a useful and more in-depth discussion in English of medieval Tendai education modalities, see
Chapter 2 of Or Porath’s recent dissertation, The Flower of Dharma Nature: Sexual Consecration and
Amalgamation in Medieval Japanese Buddhism (2019).
248
Consequently, of the 46 ji-in hattō issued by the bakufu, 34 were directed at the Tendai and Shingon
sects. They were targeted by the shōgun as the weakest and therefore easiest to regulate (Kasahara 2009:
336).
249
天海 (1536-1643)
62

rebuilding of Enryaku-ji, also mobilized shogunate support to build a Tendai learning and
administrative center in the new Tokugawa shogunate capital of Edo. The capital was established
in 1603 by Tokugawa Ieyasu
250
and in 1625, Tenkai’s Toeizan Kaneiji
251
was established as the
Kantō regional head temple for the Tendai sect. And though Mount Hiei maintained symbolic
power and influence within the sect, it was Kantō Tendai that dominated during the Tokugawa
period.
252
In the TDR, Toeizan Kaneiji’s and its seminaries are designated as the institutional
predecessors to Tendai University, which was one of four schools that merged to create Taishō
University in 1926. Accordingly, this section focuses on Kantō Tendai, especially Toeizan
Kaneiji’s Kangakuin, known also as Kangakukōin.
253

Admission to the Kangakukōin was open to priests within the ten provinces of the Kantō
region although priests from other regions and even in some cases commoners could petition to
enroll and many were granted admission.
254
At its peak in the Genroku and Hōei eras (1688-
1711), the Kangakukōin had six hundred students enrolled, bolstered in part by the support of the

250
徳川家康 (1543-1616)
251
東叡山寛永寺 The name “Toeizan” was meant to signal it was the Mount Hiei (Hieizan 比叡山) of
the east. Tendai’s founder Saichō selected Mount Hiei as the site of Enryakuji in part because it was
situated northeast of Kyoto and could therefore protect the capital from negative spiritual forces (the
northeast was traditionally seen as an unlucky direction). Likewise, Tenkai situated Toeizan in the
northeast of the new (eastern) capital of Edo for the same reason.
252
TDR: 83.
253
The name Kangakuin 勧学院 (in English, School for the Encouragement of Learning) is a widely used
name for schools, beginning with a school for nobles of the Fujiwara clan in the ninth century. In the
Tendai sect, documents from as far back at the fourteenth century show a Kangakuin at Miidera 三井寺, a
major Tendai temple situated at the foot of Mount Hiei. See Saito 1978. In the Tendai sect’s case, the
school began to use the extended name “Kangakukōin” (in English, Lecture Hall for the Encouragement
of Learning) around the turn of the eighteenth century (TDR: 87).
254
TDR: 88.
63

wealthy Buddhist donor Ryōō Dōkaku
255
who funded the construction of many school buildings,
including a library, and purchased copies of the Buddhist canon for the school. By the
Bakumatsu period, the dormitories had two hundred students.
256

Student Life and Curriculum
The Kangakuin had six levels and on average it took fourteen years to complete. Exoteric
teachings were the focus of the first twelve years, and in the final two years, esoteric teachings
were introduced.
257
Upon completing the course, students were able to become faculty, who had
their own set of five ranks.
258
As mentioned in the previous section, Tendai sect has a strong
tradition of debate, and debate was likewise central to the pedagogy at Kangakuin. Debate was
both a method for cultivating mastery of the material and for evaluating a student’s mastery of
that material.
259
Advancement was not only determined by number of years in the school but also
based on the student’s debate aptitude. First year students were given the rank “Two-season
Questioners”
260
and were taught by second through sixth-year students, known as “Eternal
Questioners.”
261
At this level, students participated in monthly debates on Buddhist teachings.

255
了翁道覚 (1630-1707) See TDR: 86-88. In English, see Groner 2012.
256
TDR: 88.
257
Ibid.: 88-89.
258
I am translating kyōshokuin 教職員 as “faculty” to distinguish these ranks from the preceding lecturer
ranks. In total there were twenty-six faculty members and their ranks were zenza 前座 (10 faculty
members), jūrō 十老 (10 faculty), gūryō 隅寮 (1 faculty), bantō 伴頭 (3 faculty), yōju kyōshi 傭儒教師
(2 faculty).
259
TDR: 93.
260
niki monja 二季問者
261
jōjū monja 常住問者 The TDR notes that although students were typically at this level for four years,
exceptionally gifted students were sometimes allowed to advance faster (89).
64

Students began to lecture at the next rank, “Entering Lecturer,”
262
on a topic of their choosing,
though most of their time was still spent as students. After two years as Entering Lecturer, a
student could advance to “Beginning Lecturer.”
263
Students were promoted to this rank based on
their performance and when the number of Entering Lecturers grew too numerous. At this level,
usually a decade into their training, student-priests transitioned to being primarily teachers. The
fifth rank, “Returning Lecturer,”
264
were promoted among the Beginning Lecturers. The final
student rank, usually years thirteen and fourteen, was “Summer Solstice Lecturer.”
265
In addition
to leading question-and-answer exercises, they also lectured on more advanced topics. Students
at this rank concluded their exoteric studies and began the study of esoteric teachings.
266

Reflected within the early modern Tendai curriculum is a major doctrinal shift within the
sect that took place in the Tokugawa period, from a strong reliance on kuden, or oral
transmission practices, to a new emphasis on precept revival based on the teachings of Zhili, a
Song period Tiantai monk.
267
A primary goal of Zhili’s work was to eliminate what he
considered corrupting doctrinal influences from the Huayan and Chan schools on Tiantai
thought. This fundamentalist movement, consistent with the larger classicist and fundamentalist
trend pervasive in Tokugawa-era scholarship discussed earlier in this chapter, was led within the
Tendai sect by the Anraku school.
268
As Jacqueline Stone points out, the Anraku school ushered

262
nyūkō 入講
263
shokō 初講. The nuance between nyū 入 and sho 初 as “entering” and “beginning” is an unsatisfying
distinction in translation but I have nevertheless kept the literal meaning.
264
saikō 再講
265
geshi kōshi 夏至講師
266
TDR: 89.
267
知禮 (960-1028)
268
安楽流
65

in new educational modes that prioritized the authority of original Tiantai sources over later
sources and syncretic doctrinal developments.
269
In the Tokugawa-era text list provided in
Appendix 4, we can see in addition to traditional Tiantai sutras a strong emphasis on the writings
of Zhiyi, the de facto founder of the Chinese Tiantai school and at least one commentary by
Zhili.

Sōtō Sect
Institutional Overview
Prior to the Tokugawa period, Sōtō Zen education was primarily praxis-centered,
emphasizing highly regimented ritual, routine, and etiquette above text-based learning. In the
primary training quarters, called the sangha hall,
270
reading and writing were prohibited. These
activities instead took place inside the common quarters,
271
and in these spaces we see the
earliest forms of Sōtō Zen seminary-style education develop.
272
By the Tokugawa period, three
seminaries had formed the foundation of Sōtō learning: the Lion’s Cave at Seishō-ji,
273
the Nine
Houses at Sengaku-ji,
274
and the Kichijō-ji Assembly Seminary.
275
The KDN traces the
university’s roots back to Kichijō-ji’s seminary. In the year of its founding, 1592, the school

269
Stone 1999: 366.
270
sōdō 僧堂
271
shūryō 衆寮 Inside the common quarters, monks could read Buddhist texts, write, drink tea, have
conversations, and mend their clothing.
272
Saito 1978: 124.
273
Shishikutsu 獅子窟 at Seishō-ji 青松寺
274
Ku’u 九宇 at Sengaku-ji 泉岳寺
275
Kichichō-ji Ega Gakuryō 吉祥寺会下学寮 . Kichijōji was founded in 1457 founded by Ōta Sukenaga
太田持資 (1432-1486), a samurai, poet, Buddhist monk, and the architect of Edo castle.
66

consisted of six dormitories, twelve buildings, and over five hundred students.
276
Its large size at
its founding date tells us Kichijō-ji was already a center for learning prior the 1592 establishment
of the seminary, and in fact, attendance records at Kichijō-ji include several thousand students
over the first three centuries of its existence.
277
While the frequent fires prevent us from knowing
numbers with any consistency throughout the Tokugawa period, the size of the rebuilds
following each fire allow some insight into the population of the school at those times.
278
For
example, following a major fire in Edo in 1657 in which Kichijō-ji was destroyed, the seminary
was expanded in the rebuilding and renamed the Sendanrin, or Incense Forest.
279
The land for the
rebuilding was a gift from the fourth shōgun, Tokugawa Ietsuna.
280
This expansion included
twenty-seven buildings and with a residential capacity for one thousand student-priests.
281

Several more buildings were added in 1687, suggesting additional growth.
Beginning in the early eighteenth century, Kichijō-ji reported the Sendanrin’s enrollment
numbers to one of the co-head temples, Sōji-ji, every seven years.
282
Another way student
population size was documented was through allocation of funds. Income collected at the school
was given over to the head temple, and then reallocated based on the student population of each
dormitory. The apex of student-priest enrollment based on this available data occurred in 1768,

276
KDN: 7.
277
Ibid.: 6.
278
When providing data on the size of the population at Kichijō-ji, the KDN at times conflates
distinctions between the number of monastics in the wider Kichijō-ji community, and the number of
student-priests ( 学僧). For this reason, I only use data where the text explicitly refers to the number of
student-priests.
279
Sendanrin 栴檀林, also sometimes known as Sōrin 叢林.
280
徳川家綱 (1641-1680)
281
KDN:10.
282
Ibid.
67

with 1,661 students recorded.
283
Following this surge in enrollment in the mid- and late-18
th

century, numbers leveled back to 1000 in the early 19
th
century. By the middle of the century
enrollment fell to five hundred, a trend the KDN attributes to the growing anti-Buddhist
sentiment that reached its peak with the Separation of Shinto and Buddhism Order in 1868, a
topic we will explore more in the next chapter.
284

The evolving naming conventions for the dormitories reveal something about the culture
at the school at different moments in the late Tokugawa period. The earliest convention we have
is from 1811. When seven of the nine dormitories were burned down in a fire, the names of the
destroyed buildings were reported in a newspaper. The dormitories were named after exemplary
masters.
285
For a time beginning around 1818, as more students were gathering at the school
from regions all over Japan, the dorms were named after regions such as Akita and Satsuma.
What we can generalize about these naming conventions even with limited data is that these
spaces reflected a multitude of identities, whether of ideals embodied in famous teachers, or of
place of origin. Many activities were divided by dormitory, so it is possible to see how identities
might form around the different residences. By 1828, the dorms were renamed once again, this
time with the names of donors who had contributed to the rebuilding of the school after the 1811
fire.
286

283
Ibid.: 2.
284
Ibid.: 13. Shinbutsu Hanzenrei 神仏判然令
285
These were Tokuō 徳翁, Shigen 志源, Shūzen 宗禅, Kumogai 雲外, Tetsuzui 徹髄, Shūon 宗音, and
Gentei 元鼎.
286
KDN: 9.
68

Student Life and Curriculum
Student-priests attended the Sendanrin for an average of seven years.
287
Daily life at the
school consisted of collecting alms before dawn, followed by attending lectures at the main
lecture hall until noon. There were no examinations, but instead students were required to give
practice lectures in the evening on a given text, often inter-sectarian. The lecturing student was
selected via a lottery and the text was selected based on the skill level of the student. These
practice lectures took place from five to nine in the evening.
288
In addition to these activities, a
main lecture was offered to the public in the evening from seven to eight. For this, students from
each dormitory took turns lecturing on selected texts from the wider Buddhist canon. The KDN
gives us a small glimpse into the atmosphere of these lectures by mentioning that the Sendanrin
occasionally acted as a kind of training ground for those who aspired to teach at the Shōheikō,
and that lecturers were often surprised by the harsh criticism they received from students at the
Sendanrin.
289
Students also worked on poetry compositions once or twice monthly. After editing
these compositions, they were circulated within the dorms.
290

From its earliest days, the core of the curriculum had always been intra-sectarian
studies
291
and inter-sectarian studies,
292
but by mid-eighteenth century, the curriculum grew to
include a growing emphasis on Chinese literature,
293
poetry composition,
294
and writing,
295
a

287
Ibid.: 10.
288
KDN: 15.
289
Ibid.
290
Ibid.
291
shūjō 宗乗
292
yojō 余乗
293
kanseki 漢籍
294
sakushi 作詩
295
sakubun 作文
69

reflection of the broader intellectual climate. The intra-sectarian texts include major Zen and
Chan texts such as the biographies and sermons of Dōgen, kōan collections, and meditation
manuals. The inter-sectarian texts were comprised of major Mahayana sutras such as the Lotus,
Vimalakirti, and Perfect Enlightenment Sutras,
296
with the largest concentration on Tendai texts.
The Chinese Literature curriculum contains writing collections of major Chinese philosophers
and literary masters such as Confucius, Zhuangzi,
297
Liu Xiang,
298
and Laozi,
299
as well as
introductory texts for Chinese literature such as the Méngqiú.
300
Poetry composition, included
instructional texts such as the Sanjūin
301
and anthologies from Chan and Zen poets. The large
representation of Chinese texts in the curriculum reflects not only Zen’s close identification with
its dharma lineages in China, but also the broader intellectual trends of the period as outlined
earlier in the chapter. In addition to the curriculum above, some students supplemented their
studies at the Sendanrin by attending shijuku, and even at other sect’s seminaries.

296
Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra (T 262), Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra (T 474-476), Yuanjue jing 圓覺經 (T
842).
297
Shōshi 莊子
298
劉向 (77-6 BCE)
299
Rōshi 老子
300
蒙求 (J. Mōgyū) This learning text employs ancient stories written in four-character phrases in order to
be easier for beginners to memorize and familiarize themselves with the style of Chinese literature.
301
Originally written by Kokan Shiren ( 虎関師錬 1278-1347) in 1307 with the title Collection of Sounds
(Shūbun Inryaku 聚分韻略), this Japanese guide for composing Chinese poetry by phoneme ( 声韻) was
widely published in Japan throughout the Tokugawa period. Later, some versions of this text came to be
known by 三重韻 (see Kokusho sōmokuroku 1963, Volume 3: 787).
70

Conclusion
However briefly, this chapter has highlighted some of the unique political, regional, and
sectarian forces at work within each of these four case studies. But setting distinctions aside,
what can be generalized about Buddhist seminary education in the Tokugawa period? First, we
find in all cases the unsurprising fact that curricula were heavily doctrinal and exegetical.
Though it is possible to attribute some of this to the bakufu policies designed to curtail Buddhist
influence in the public sphere by encouraging lengthy education for priests, it can also be
understood to be part of wider textualist and fundamentalist trends from the period, further
bolstered by advances in printing technologies. The result was that the scholars and scholarship
produced in these seminaries played a central role in forging and fortifying sectarian identities
that can be seen even in the present day. As Meiji-era reformers attempting to construct a pan-
sectarian Japanese (or global) Buddhist identity learned, those sectarian boundaries were not
easily overcome. And while strict governmental regulation against heterodoxy may have kept
doctrinal innovations modest, the institutional developments within Buddhist seminaries across
all our case studies were immense. This infrastructure— comprised of buildings, texts, curricula,
networks, and faculty, provided fertile ground in the Meiji period for the transformation of
Buddhist education and the emergence of the modern scholar-priest.
71

Chapter 2.
Seeds of Change: Curricular Reforms in Early Meiji Period Buddhist Academies
In the previous chapter we examined ways the Tokugawa era’s educational landscape
provided fertile intellectual and institutional grounds for the immense changes Buddhists would
encounter with the transition to the Meiji period. Continuing this botanical metaphor, this chapter
views curricular reforms at early Meiji Buddhist academies as the seeds of change within
Buddhist higher education. Drawing from the official histories
302
of our case-study universities
(Ōtani University, Komazawa University, and Taishō University) and Meiji-era personal
memoirs, this chapter identifies the global and domestic intellectual, ideological, and political
forces that led Buddhist academies to rethink their curricula and reimagine Buddhist education.
As a result of these reforms, academies became more attuned to the global and religiously plural
context in which Meiji Buddhists suddenly found themselves.
This chapter begins by contextualizing developments in Buddhist higher education during
this period within some of the dominant institutions, ideas, and intellectuals driving national
education discourse in the early Meiji period, including global trends in higher education. From
there, I use a case study to connect national education with intellectual forces at work during the
Meiji period with the Buddhist world. For this, the Ōtani denomination of Jōdo Shinshū’s
Institute for the Protection of the Dharma, or the Gohōjō
303
as it is more commonly known,
provides the earliest and most detailed sources available to scholars. The Gohōjō was one of the
first experiments in the Japanese Buddhist world with a new, liberal arts curriculum and while it
has received passing mention in many works,
304
its dynamic history deserves closer attention.

302
See the introduction for a discussion of the challenges of relying on official institutional histories.
303
護法場
304
See for example Ketelaar 1993, Kobayashi and Kurihara 2000, Schroeder 2015.
72

Following this case study, we expand our focus to observe developments and trends across case-
study academies from other sects. The central goal of this chapter is to uncover ways in which
curricula not only reflected a changing educational landscape but ultimately came to be used as a
tool for social and institutional change within Buddhism.

Ideas, Individuals, and Institutions behind National Education Discourse in the Early Meiji
Period
In April 1868, Emperor Meiji promulgated the Charter Oath, a document containing five
articles that were to guide the nation’s priorities for his reign. Article Five states, “Knowledge
shall be sought throughout the world in order to promote the welfare of the empire.” In
emphasizing the accumulation of global knowledge, this article set the tone for educational
development in the Meiji period. In practice, however, the path taken by Meiji-era education
policymakers was far from linear. The first two decades of the period witnessed a multi-
directional tug of war between competing interest groups, among them Buddhists, Nativists,
Confucianists, and secularists, and none were successful in dominating the discourse for long.
Representative of this struggle were three men. On one side, there were conservatives
like Motoda Eifu,
305
Confucian tutor to Emperor Meiji and co-author of the Imperial Rescript on
Education of 1890.
306
Motoda believed Western-style education lacked morality and asserted that

305
元田永浮 (1818-1891)
306
Kyōiku Chokugo 教育勅語. This was a proclamation intended to provide a moral and ethical
foundation for Imperial Japan. It emphasized values such as loyalty to the nation, self-improvement for
the common good, and filial piety. Though intentionally written to be areligious so as not to violate
constitutional religious freedom, the fact that it was promulgated by Shinto priests and recited in school
ceremonies with Shinto trappings infused the document with a strong Shinto affiliation. See Hardacre
1989.
73

Confucian education was the key to raising loyal and virtuous imperial subjects. On the other
side was Fukuzawa Yukichi,
307
famous promulgator of Western knowledge in Japan and founder
of one of Japan’s earliest and most prestigious private universities, Keiō University. Fukuzawa
argued that Confucian education was impractical for the times, and that education must be both
practical and independent from state influence.
308
In the middle was the youngest of the three
men, Mori Arinori,
309
Japan’s first Minister of Education and the architect of the Meiji education
system that endured until the end of World War II. As Minister, Mori implemented many
structural elements of the American and European educational systems, such as the university
system and a standard primary school curriculum but ensured the content of education was
firmly nationalistic and infused with Confucian teachings.
Even within a single faction, consensus over how best to steer Japan’s education system
proved elusive, and the early Meiji period was riddled with a haphazard patchwork of policy
experiments that were often either too vague or too cumbersome to effectively execute.
Untangling some of the myriad voices in the debates about education at institutions at the
national level during this period is key to comprehending the eclectic, at times even conflicting,
characteristics of the developing curriculum at early Meiji Buddhist academies.

The Great Promulgation Campaign and the Great Teaching Institute

307
福澤諭吉 (1835-1901)
308
Fukuzawa 2016: 30.
309
森有礼 (1847-1889)
74

The Great Promulgation Campaign
310
and its accompanying Great Teaching Institute
311

supplied one of the earliest opportunities for Buddhists to redefine their relationship vis à vis the
state. This campaign began as an exclusively Shinto endeavor, designed to spread a new
nationalist doctrine devoid of Buddhist and other ‘foreign’ influence. But by 1872, this strategy
was proving ineffective as Shintoists, historically focused on ritual, struggled to create a
cohesive doctrine entirely distinct from Buddhism. Recognizing this, Buddhist lobbyists like
Shimaji Mokurai
312
successfully persuaded the hardliner pro-Shinto, anti-Christian faction of the
Meiji government that Buddhist priests’ experience teaching and proselytizing could bolster the
fledgling enterprise.
313
Coinciding with Buddhists’ inclusion in the campaign, the Great
Teaching Institute opened in March as a place to train National Evangelists.
314
Evangelists were
charged with instructing the public on the Three Teachings.
315
These were: (1) respect for the
gods, love of country; (2) making clear the principles of Heaven and the Way of Man; (3)

310
Taikyō Senpū Undō 大教宣布運動
311
Daikyōin 大教院
312
島地黙雷 (1838-1911)
313
In fact, New Religionists, Native Studies scholars, and even entertainers were allowed to serve as
National Evangelists from 1872 as well. See Hardacre 1989. Numbers of National Evangelists vary
widely depending on the source and date of the records used. Ogawara explains that in 1874, the year
prior to the Great Teaching Institute’s closure, there were 3,043 Buddhist National Evangelists (out of
approximately 118,000 priests nationally) and 4204 Shinto National Evangelists (out of nearly 10,000
priests nationally) (Ogawara 2004: 51). Ketalaar offers much higher numbers of National Evangelists
based on a record from the Bureau of Shrines and temples dated to 1880. He writes that there among a
total number of 103,000 evangelists, 81,000 belonged to Buddhist sects, of which Shin Buddhists made
up the largest amount at almost 25,000.” (Ketalaar 1993: 105).
314
kyōdōshoku 教導職
315
Sanjō no kyōsoku 三条の教則
75

reverence for the emperor and obedience to the will of the court.
316
When these teachings proved
too vague, they were later clarified to include an assortment of aspects of the modern nation state
including taxes, military service, universal education, and more.
317

Buddhists, with their long history of preaching to the public used this strength to on the
one hand make visible contributions to the new state and on the other, to spread their sectarian
message. One such Buddhist evangelist was Nanjō Bunyū.
318
Just twenty-five years old at the
time, he would later go on to become a leader within the Ōtani denomination, the second
President of Ōtani University, and the father of Sanskrit Studies in Japan. In his memoir, Nanjō
records some thoughts about his encounters at the Great Teaching Institute. He explains that
evangelists were required to pass an oral examination and that this entailed giving a sermon on
the Three Teachings. Nanjō points out that this was very hard for Buddhists because they were
forbidden from including Buddhist teachings in their sermons. Failure to properly respond to oral
examination questions could even result in expulsion from the priesthood or temple closure.
319

Thus, while Buddhists seemed to have the upper hand in terms of previous experience preaching,
many also struggled to adapt their skills in this new role. The best evangelists, as Nanjō writes,
were those like Matsuyama Yoshiaki
320
who could skillfully weave in Buddhist teachings
without catching the attention of examiners.
321

316
(1) 敬神愛国ノ旨ヲ体スヘキ事 (2) 天理人道ヲ明ニスヘキ事 (3) 皇上ヲ奉戴シ朝旨ヲ遵守セシ
ムヘキ事. English translations from Hardacre, 1989.
317
Hardacre 1989.
318
南条文雄 (1849-1927)
319
Ketelaar1993: 123.
320
松山善明 (dates unknown)
321
Nanjō 1927: 66.
76

By 1873, Buddhists had successfully petitioned to include Buddhist themes in their
preaching, and they did so by creating a Buddhist curriculum for the Great Teaching Institute
that deemphasized sectarian difference and emphasized aspects of Buddhism that were useful to
the state by promoting public order.
322
This effort, led by the Jōdo Shin sect, was significant
because it was the first time Buddhists experimented with creating a modern, pan-sectarian
curriculum. Absent much of the Great Teaching Institute curricula itself, scholars have tended to
rely on Great Teaching Institute examination study guides published by the Buddhist sects to
glean what priests studied.
323
These study guides featured commonly shared Buddhist themes
like co-dependent origination, karma, the four noble truths, Buddha nature, and morality.
In emphasizing trans-sectarian rationalized ethical themes, scholars have argued that
participation in the Great Teaching Institute is an example of Buddhists framing dharmic
teachings in the language of modern civil religion.
324
By 1875, however, it became apparent that
the Campaign and Institute were working to undermine Buddhism in order to establish an
emergent State Shinto. Shimaji Mokurai, who led the efforts for Buddhist inclusion in the
campaign in 1872, now argued that the regulated curriculum at the Great Teaching Institute had
gone too far in restricting Buddhist’s rights to practice and propagate their own teachings.
Following his lead, Jōdo Shinshū, which comprised the largest delegation of National Evangelist
priests, withdrew its participants. The Institute, already on tenuous financial and organizational
grounds before the Jōdo Shinshū withdrawal, closed a few months later in May of 1875.
325
The

322
Lyons, 2019: 223.
323
Only a few scholars have written about these study guides, though the guides are not published
anywhere. See Lyons 2018 and Tokushige 1974.
324
Lyons, 2019: 223.
325
See Hardacre, 1989: 44-48.
77

Great Promulgation Campaign continued without an instructional headquarters until 1884, when
it too ended.
Even after the Great Promulgation Campaign ended and the Great Teaching Institute
closed, Buddhists fought to maintain their voice in the public sphere by advocating for the ability
to serve as public educators. In the next chapter we will explore specific ways Buddhists in the
mid-Meiji period continued to work as educators in the public sphere. Buddhist schools,
however, faced a substantial setback in 1899 when the Ministry of Education Directive 12
banned religious education in all accredited schools, public and private.
326
Despite this ban
Buddhists groups persisted for decades, and Buddhist universities were eventually granted the
ability to issue teaching licenses to their graduates in the Taishō period.
327

In the decades following the closure of the Great Teaching Institute, Buddhist groups
appeared clearer than ever about the necessity of scholarship for the survival of their sects. In an
1894 internal document announcing changes to the Ōtani denomination’s Academy
328
rules, the
Ōtani’s Head Priest writes “The spreading of the teachings is through propagation. The root of
this propagation is scholarship…This is the time for the continuation of studies, the primary
foundation of promulgation, in other words we are entering the next phase of the education
system.”
329
Involvement in the Great Teaching Institute was more than just a way for Buddhists
to prove their usefulness to the state; it was also a means to redefine Buddhist teachings and

326
This ban on religious education from schools (Ministry of Education Directive 12) excluded State
Shinto, which the Meiji government asserted was not a religion but rather an ideology of the state. See
Hardacre 1989.
327
More on these efforts in Chapter 3.
328
Ōtani Gakuryō 大谷学寮
329
ODNS: 151, no. 214.
78

education for a new era and via new institutions.
330
In their interactions with the public as
National Evangelists, Buddhist priests actively linked Buddhism to the modernizing Meiji state
and the institutions that came with it. Not only was this a valuable proselytization opportunity
that many Buddhist groups found too good to pass up, the experience of educating the public on
unfamiliar topics exposed gaps in priests’ own knowledge about the emerging civil society, gaps
that were later rectified through revisions to Buddhist curricula. Thus, early experimentations
with expanded curricula at the Great Teaching Institute were important steps toward curricular
reforms within the sectarian academies that we will explore in greater depth later in this chapter.

The University of Tokyo
The Great Teaching Institute, with its mission to train National Evangelists to
disseminate state doctrine to the masses, differed from higher educational institutions that
educated elites and, in the modern period, trained professionals in fields deemed beneficial to the
state. By the mid-1870s, the Great Teaching Institute was waning while the newly established
University of Tokyo was emerging as a powerful institution in the higher educational landscape.
The University of Tokyo was born in 1877 out of a merger between three separate schools: the
Shōheikō,
331
a Confucian academy founded by the Tokugawa shogunate in the seventeenth
century, the Yōgakusho,
332
a Western studies academy, and the Shutōsho,
333
a vaccination
institute, the latter two founded in the Bakumatsu period. The core departments were law,

330
Scholar Ejima Naotoshi has critiqued the popular assertion that Christianity was a major influence on
Buddhist groups in the early Meiji period, he argues instead it was participation in the Great Teaching
Institute that had a greater impact (Ejima in Ejima et al. 2014).
331
昌平黌
332
洋学所
333
種痘所
79

science, literature, and medicine. In the first nine years, 473 students graduated, the
overwhelming majority in medicine and science (215 and 149 respectively).
334
Literature,
including Chinese, Japanese and Foreign literature majors comprised just ten percent of the total
graduates, producing 47 students. By the end of the nineteenth century, the university expanded
to include an engineering school and an agricultural school for a total of six departments.
335

The educational model for the University of Tokyo is as complex as its origins.
Indigenous and Chinese ideas about higher education continued to be important throughout the
Meiji period, while several leading national intellectuals such as Fukuzawa Yukichi and Itō
Hirobumi observed universities and colleges in the U.S. and Europe at an especially dynamic
time for higher education in the West.
336
Some of what these intellectuals experienced abroad
informed their thoughts on what higher education in Japan should (or should not) look like. In
his memoir, Fukuzawa outlines his fundamental principles of education as (1) independence and
(2) practicality. He argued “Japan could not assert herself among the great nations of the world
without full recognition and practice of these two principles.”
337
Although Fukuzawa was an
ardent supporter of appropriating Western educational techniques, the notions of independence
and practicality were by no means exclusive domains of the West. Meiji education policy leaders
like Motoda Eifu and Mori Arinori advocated Neo-Confucian thought, highlighting its teachings

334
Amano 2009: 59. The number of graduates is striking when compared to higher educational
institutions in the United States at the time, which graduated roughly one-third of that amount on average
over the same period. See Labaree 2017: location 495.
335
Amano 2009: 59.
336
Fukuzawa acted as translator in the first diplomatic mission in 1859. Itō was a member of the Chōshū
Five ( 長州五傑), a group of five young men from the southern domain of Chōshū selected to study
abroad in London in 1863. Itō later served as a Vice-Ambassador on the Iwakura Mission across the
United States and Europe from 1871-1873.
337
Fukuzawa 2016: 215.
80

in both empirical reason and moral cultivation. Thus, my intention here is not to reduce the
narrative of the University of Tokyo’s development to one of unilateral ‘Western influence.’ This
characterization, which persists in scholarship even today, denies Japanese agency and grossly
oversimplifies the entangled process through which two or more cultures interact.
338
Further, it
denies the influence of Japanese scholarly activity on Western institutions, a subject I will cover
in Chapter 4.
Nevertheless, in the early years of the University of Tokyo foreign faculty and advisors
were prevalent. Chief among them was David Murray,
339
an American academic appointed by
the Meiji government to serve as Superintendent of Educational Affairs
340
from 1873 to 1879.
Among Murray’s roles was to oversee the transition to the new national university system,
starting with the University of Tokyo. The University of Tokyo was followed by additional
national universities in important regions like Kyoto in 1897 and Tohoku in 1907.
341
Murray
advocated for a national university system, despite being a product of the American system,
which lacked its own national university system. At the time, America was dominated by state
and private colleges. Universities-- like those found in Europe-- were just beginning to emerge.
Further, while most of the prestigious schools in the United States were private, Murray noted
major inconsistencies in the quality of the private schools in the American system and did not
wish to replicate that approach in Japan.
342
Murray and the other foreign faculty, of which

338
In the next chapter, I will address this more directly with a discussion and critique of “global
isomorphism.”
339
1830-1905. For more on Murray, see Chamberlain 1915.
340
Gakkan 学監
341
When Kyoto Imperial University (Kyoto Teikoku Daigaku 京都帝国大学) was founded in 1897, the
University of Tokyo was renamed Tokyo Imperial University (Tokyo Teikoku Daigaku 東京帝国大学).
342
Amano 2009: 46-50.
81

American faculty members made up the largest number, were products of the liberal arts-style
education that prevailed mid-nineteenth century American higher education. Furthermore, most
of the Japanese educators at the University of Tokyo had spent time in the West, both as students
and as governmental observers.
343
Nearly seventy percent of the faculty between 1877 and 1886
were study-abroad returnees, the largest group having studied in Germany, where the research
university model was ascending as the new global standard for scholarship.
344
As a result,
Western higher educational influence was pervasive throughout the curriculum.
Buddhism was first included in the University of Tokyo’s curricula in 1879, as part of a
lecture by Hara Tanzan
345
within the Japanese and Chinese literature course. Following that, it
continued to be studied primarily through the lens of language (Sanskrit, Pali, and classical
Chinese) and literature, in line with Western approaches Buddhist Studies. By 1917, studies had
developed beyond philological and into the philosophical and a Chair in Indian Philosophy was
established. While a handful of Buddhist scholar-priests contributed to the burgeoning study of
Buddhism in secular settings like the University of Tokyo,
346
the Buddhist education community
at large had other aims. They were not only concerned with adhering to and shaping the evolving

343
At its peak, salaries to foreigners comprised nearly four percent of the national budget, and ten percent
of the Ministry of Education’s total budget. See Passin, 1965, 95. Between 1877 and 1878, thirty-five
percent of the University of Tokyo’s budget went to salaries for foreign faculty. See Kim 2014, 58.
344
帰国者 More faculty studied in Germany (11 faculty) than anywhere else, followed by the United
States (7), France (5), and England (5). Most of these faculty studied science and medicine (25) with only
a handful going to study law or literature (3 and 1 respectively). See Amano 2009, 54. Hoi-eun Kim’s
study on German medical training in Meiji Japan explains that Germany’s influence in the period was a
result of German colonial ambitions in East Asia and the Meiji government’s desire to modernize their
medical knowledge. See Kim 2014, 25. On the German research university model’s influence more
broadly in global higher education see O’Boyle 1983.
345
For more on Tanzan see Chapter 4.
346
These include Hara Tanzan, Nanjō Bunyū, and Murakami Senshō 村上専精 (1851-1929).
82

national education landscape, but were also, as we will see in the next section, engaged in their
own debates about what Buddhist education in this new era should look like. Adapting with the
times meant different things to different reformers,
347
and diverse movements arose that called
for a variety of changes, including creating a unified Buddhism, trans-sectarian Buddhist
education, unification with Shinto and Confucianism,
348
the integration of Western subjects into
clerical curriculum, trans-national intellectual exchange and more. Though many of these
movements failed to gain traction in the Buddhist mainstream, educational reforms were adopted
by most of the main sects by the end of the Meiji period.
349

Global Curricular Reforms: Parallels and Divergences
Higher education was changing abroad, too, and the mix of nineteenth-century
intellectuals and educational reformers in both Europe and the U.S. had a significant impact on
Japan. David Labaree’s study of the history of American higher education explains that mid-
nineteenth century college curriculum was still largely dominated by classical studies, which he
explains as a “focus on classical languages, the medieval trivium, and religion” that emphasized
“tradition and piety rather than learning things that would prove useful in the modern world.”
350

347
Compounding this confusion is that progressive and conservatives alike used terms like “reform,”
“restore,” and “revitalize.” Some proponents of eliminating sectarian boundaries (a progressive/modern
stance) in Japanese Buddhism spoke about “reverting [Buddhism] to its ancient form” (Sawayanagi
Masataro quoted in Klautau 2011: 80), but this same idea of “reversion” was used by conservatives.
Exactly what is meant by these terms varied widely by individual.
348
Combined with Buddhism, this was known as the Three Teachings sankyō 三教. Rhodes points out
that this was also an effort to end the criticism of Buddhism from Shinto and Confucianism by
“reconciling it,” (Rhodes 2011: 5).
349
One exception to this was Shingon, which was relatively slow to reform. See Abe 2014.
350
Labaree 2017: loc. 846.
83

Just as older models of Buddhist education were proving inadequate to address Buddhism’s
critics and the issues facing a modernizing Japan in the early Meiji period, a similar crisis was
happening in religious education in the United States. Jon Roberts and James Turner explain that
in the United States during the 1860s and 1870s, a variety of socio-cultural factors converged on
the valorization of the scientific method and inquiry.
351
In response, religious colleges and
universities moved the thrust of their efforts from “harmonizing science and revelation” to
“altering biblical interpretations to comport with the findings of science.”
352
Likewise, Buddhists
in Japan, subjected to criticism for being anti-scientific, incorporated Western Astronomy into
their curricula as a way to grapple with the conflicting cosmologies of Mount Sumeru and
heliocentrism. At the same time, the scientific study of religion was emerging as an important
modern discipline in the West as a signal of its own maturity.
353
This discipline was crucial,
Tomoko Masuzawa explains, because at a time when the emerging concept of ‘world religions’
was applying an evolutionary framework to faith groups, “every region of the nonmodern non-
West was presumed to be thoroughly in the grip of religion, as all aspects of life were supposedly
determined and dictated by an archaic metaphysics of the magical and the supernatural.”
354
Thus
religionists on both sides of the Pacific appropriated new educational approaches for the benefit,
or survival, of their own tradition. In Japan as in the United States, previous scholarship proved
unable to adequately respond to the ideas posed by modern science, thus necessitating an
overhaul of education in order to more closely adhere to these new standards and educational

351
Roberts and Turner 2000.
352
Robert and Turner 2000: location 980.
353
Masuzawa 2005: 16.
354
Masuzawa 2005: 16.
84

objectives. For Buddhists in Japan, the stakes were even higher, as critics came from seemingly
all directions.

Early Experiments with Buddhist Education for a Global Context: A Case Study of the
Gohōjō
For Jodo Shin sect of Buddhism’s Ōtani denomination, the transition from a Tokugawa-
style seminary to a modern university began with the founding of the Gohōjō.
355
Along with its
more traditional, preexisting counterpart, the Gakuryō,
356
these two institutions were the main
stages for debates over the objective and direction of clerical education in the Ōtani
denomination. Though conflict over the appropriate response to the new challenges brought on
by the Meiji period was not unique to Ōtani, they were among the first to experiment with
institutionalizing these reforms with the establishment of the Gohōjō. Further, several Gohōjō
alumni went on to play significant roles in foreign exchange, education, local politics, as well as
sectarian and university reforms in the second half of the Meiji period, making the Gohōjō an
instructive case study in the rising influence of higher education in modern Buddhism
357
.
As explained in the previous chapter, Buddhist school enrollment growth accelerated
during the late Tokugawa period. At the Gakuryō, enrollment reached 1,500 students in 1826 and
by 1828 the campus included a total of seven buildings. Aside from sporadic offerings on non-
Buddhist subjects,
358
study primarily centered on sectarian ritual and text. This changed in the

355
護法場 Institute for the Protection of the Dharma
356
学寮, often translated as “academy”
357
Examples include Nanjō Bunyū, Ishikawa Tairei 石川台嶺 (1842-1871) and Hoshikawa Hōsawa 星川
法沢 (1833-1873), Hosokawa Sengan 細川千巌 (1834-1897) and Seki Shinso 関信三 (1843-1880).
358
See Chapter 1 for more on the non-Buddhist lectures offered at these institutions.
85

early Meiji period when, in an effort to prepare its priests for the escalating threats posed by an
increasing number of critics, the Ōtani denomination’s higher education institution, then named
Takakura Gakuryō
359
began in earnest to teach non-Buddhist subjects.
On August 1, 1868, two lay leaders were appointed to head up the plans to establish an
academy for gaigaku,
360
or non-Buddhist, research and education. A suitable site was found near
the Gakuryō four days later. Though gaigaku classes had been held in the ordinary lecture
halls
361
prior to the Meiji period, conservatives grew critical of holding of lectures on
Buddhism’s critics in places designated for teaching the Dharma. Just two weeks after the
beginning of the search, the Gohōgakujō
362
held an opening ceremony. On that occasion,
professor and then head of the Gakuryō, Kōzan-in Ryūon,
363
delivered a speech in which he
explained that while "gohō" once meant simply the preservation of the honzan
364
and the pursuit
of sectarian studies,
365
at the Gakuryō, the recent proliferation of evils views
366
necessitated a
response that includes research and education in gaigaku.
367
In this interpretation, Kōzan-in
identifies an important distinction between preservation of one’s own sect, and preservation of
Buddhism as a whole. This speaks to the escalation in crisis consciousness of the period
experienced by Buddhists with events like the haibutsu kishaku campaign. Once those direct

359
高倉学寮 Takakura Academy
360
外学 Literally translated as “outside studies” but in this case, refers to “non-Buddhist studies.”
361
kōdō 講堂
362
護法学場 (more commonly referred to as the Gohōjō)
363
香山院竜温 (1800-1885)
364
本山 head temple
365
shūgaku 宗学
366
jaken 邪見
367
ODN, 42.
86

threats subsided a few years into the Meiji period, Buddhists would eventually attempt to link the
gohō ideology with a new one, gokoku,
368
or preservation of the state.
Led by Ōtani priests Kōzan-in Ryūon and Senshōin Kūkaku
369
, the Gohōjō was founded
in August of 1868 as a place to study gaigaku, which despite its vague name, referred in this case
to the teachings of four of Japanese Buddhism’s most vocal critics and largest perceived threats:
Christianity, Western Astronomy (particularly heliocentrism), Confucianism (jugaku), and
Nativist Studies. Though their curriculum was distinct from that of the Gakuryō, instructors at
the Gakuryō were expected to teach and conduct research on gaigaku at the Gohōjō. The Gohōjō
and Gakuryō were jointly managed, and leaders were appointed from within the faculty on a
rotating basis. There were no specific requirements to enroll at the Gohōjō, and students were
admitted on a trial basis through recommendations. Some students were only affiliated with the
Gohōjō, while others maintained affiliations with both the Gakuryō and the Gohōjō. For these
reasons, the enrollment numbers for the Gohōjō are not known.
The curriculum on Christianity, sometimes referred to as “Western teachings” focused on
Protestant teachings, Catholic doctrine, and church history. This class was mainly a study of
passages from the Chinese language Bible because no Japanese translation of the Bible had been
written yet. This was possible because most educated Japanese could read Chinese characters.
An early student of the school, Nanjō Bunyū, wrote in his memoir about his experience studying
Christianity at the school:

368
護国 See Ketelaar 1993: 85.
369
闡彰院空覚 (1804-1871) Senshōin Kūkaku was an important reformer and looms large in the history
of early Meiji Buddhist higher education within the Ōtani denomination. We will examine more about his
life, influence, and his assassination in the next chapter.
87

With the intent of refuting false doctrine, Senshōin would set the Chinese translation of
the Christian Bible on the bookstand and have us discuss and read extensively from it.
Then, we students would also be divided to represent Buddhists or Christians and discuss
and debate the superior points of each doctrine. It is fun to reminisce about the time when
I burnt in passion for learning; above all, overflowing with lively energy.
370

As Nanjo reveals in his recollection, the aim at this early stage was not merely to learn about
Christian doctrine, but to place it in conversation with Buddhist teachings. This was important
training for priests as Christians poured into Japan and Buddhists, likewise, were sent abroad for
education and mission work.
Western Astronomy, specifically heliocentrism, was an essential subject because
traditional Buddhist cosmology, which centered on Mount Sumeru, was often the subject of
ridicule and was commonly cited as proof of Buddhism’s backwardness by its critics. The
Copernican system, first posited in the 16
th
century, that placed the sun, not the earth, at the
center of the solar system, was not well known in Japan until the turn of the nineteenth
century.
371
For Buddhists, heliocentrism was an especially important concept to study because
critics targeted Buddhist cosmology for being unscientific.
372
The traditional view of the cosmos
according to Buddhists centers on a cosmically large mountain, Mount Sumeru that ascends into

370
私は闡彰院などといっしょに毎日通学した。破邪顕正という趣意から、闡彰院嗣講は漢訳し
た耶蘇教の聖典を見台に乗せ、大いに講読せられたことがある。したがって私たち寮生も仏・
耶両教徒に分かれ、教義の優劣を討論したこともあった。なんといっても活気縦横、好学心に
燃えた当時のことは思い出しても愉快なことである。Nanjō, 17.
371
In the West this was around the same time the Catholic church moved away from actively prohibiting
the Copernican model.
372
As Yulia Frumer’s 2018 study of astronomical time in Tokugawa Japan points out, this clash over
cosmological models began in the previous era and bore relevance in debates over calendrical systems
and the measurement of time. See especially Chapters 7 and 8.
88

various levels of heavens. While Sumeru sits at the center of the cosmological system, the earth
is a flat disc situated between the heaven realms and the lower realms.
373
Before Copernicus was
Ptolemy, and his geocentric model had the sun and moon rotating around the earth. Buddhists,
similarly, had the sun and moon rotating around not only the earth, but Mt. Sumeru. Along with
astronomy, mathematics and calendrical studies were also taught. Like their approach with
Christianity, the initial goal with studying Western scientific concepts like heliocentrism was to
understand it well enough to debate it. Erik Hammerstrom’s work on early twentieth century
Chinese Buddhists’ engagement with science rightly emphasizes that for many Chinese
Buddhists, science was a “compelling discourse,” the engagement with which was driven by
both internal motivation and external forces.
374
Further, as the idea of science in this period came
to be used synonymously with modernity and to be employed by the state to convey strength on
the global stage, many Buddhists in China as in Meiji Japan likewise saw utility in articulating
their beliefs in ways both compatible with and critical of modern science. In Chapter 4, we will
look closer at the work of Hara Tanzan, a Meiji-era pioneer in articulating Buddhism in the
language of modern scientific empiricism.
The curriculum for Confucian teachings included texts from the Chinese classics that had
long been a staple of the educated elite in Japan but did not have a consistent presence in the
curricula of all Buddhist sects prior to the Meiji period. The Nativist Studies
375
course was
comprised of studying Japanese language and literature, such as the Nihonshoki,
376
as well as
traditional literary styles such as waka and wabun through a nativist lens. As explained in the

373
See Sadakata (1973).
374
Hammerstrom 2015: 5.
375
Kokugaku 国学
376
日本書紀
89

previous chapter, Nativist Studies and Confucianism were taught at Ōtani’s Takakura Gakuryō
during the late Tokugawa period. Over the course of the nineteenth century, both Confucianist
and Nativist scholars produced increasingly harsh criticisms of Buddhism and the Gakuryō
responded by holding lectures and discussions on these "teachings of false doctrines"
377
every
other day.
378

Building off the Gakuryō’s Tokugawa period practice, the Gohōjō aimed to equip
students with responses to Buddhism’s widening circle of critics. For example, students were
often expected to take opposing sides of an argument and debate. In fact, it was common practice
at the Gohōjō for anyone at any level, from professor to novice, at any time to hold a form of
debate-style examination called ryūgi mondō
379
in the dining hall, where students and teachers
engaged in academic discussions about a chosen topic. As examined in the previous chapter,
debating has long been a tool of Buddhist pedagogy,
380
stretching back to Buddhism’s Indian
roots. But in this new era, this traditional tool was employed at the Gohōjō to tackle Japanese
Buddhism’s modern critics.
Debates between Buddhists and their critics were not the only site of contention,
however. For its time, the Gohōjō’s approach to education was seen by many as too progressive
and as posing a threat to traditional Buddhist education. This led to repeated conflict between
pro-reform and anti-reform camps that we will explore at greater length in the next chapter.
Relevant here is that in spite of or perhaps because of these disputes, the Head Temple often sent

377
haja no yōmon 破邪の要文
378
ODN, 44.
379
立義問答
380
See also John Kieschnick’s discussion of debate in medieval Chinese Buddhism as a central part of
scholar-monk culture (1997: 123-127).
90

mixed messages about the proper place and value of non-Buddhist subjects within the sect; while
taking steps to hinder the growth and power of the Gohōjō, such as frequently moving the
school’s location and preventing it from increasing its size, it also recruited researchers from its
branch temples to study non-Buddhist subjects, an indication that it at least partially supported
the mission of the Gohōjō.
The fear and sense of crisis shared by both the reformers and the conservatives elicited
opposite responses; while the reformers felt the only way to effectively counter Buddhism’s
critics was to have an intimate knowledge of their critics’ philosophy and teachings, the
conservatives felt the best defense was to strengthen their commitment to Buddhist teachings.
These two perspectives were at the core of the struggle over Buddhist education, and the
sustained conflict between the two led to significant structural reorganization within the Ōtani
denomination during the Meiji period.

Though the Gohōjō did not officially close until 1873, few historical documents
concerning the Gohōjō remain after 1871. The ODN explains that the absence of sources may be
explained as a sign that the Gohōjō had already achieved many of its goals for sectarian
reform.
381
Though they were not completely successful in opening the sect to the degree that
many at the Gohōjō originally envisioned, by 1871, priests at the Gohōjō and allied priests from
local branch temples had replaced many of the powerful conservative lay leaders within the
sectarian organization. Another, perhaps more plausible explanation for the lack of records
during this time period is the 1872 law that permitted Buddhist priests to become National
Evangelists for the Great Teaching Institute for the first time. As seen in the previous section, the
Great Teaching Institute created a temporary shift in priorities for young clerics in many sects

381
ODN: 60.
91

from the survival of their own sect to building a case for Buddhism’s place in service to the new
Japanese state. While short-lived, the Ōtani denomination’s participation in the Great Teaching
Institute can be seen as reflecting a wider phenomenon Ketelaar identifies as the coupling of the
gohō (protect the dharma) ideology to the “conception of the preservation of the nation: gokoku
[protect the nation].”
382

The history of the rise and fall of the Gohōjō illustrates the complex set of questions and
intra-sectarian conflict borne from the political, religious, and educational developments of the
period. The full impact of the Gohōjō extends beyond its institutional lifespan and can be found
in the activities of some of its alumni. The mission of the Gohōjō, to gain an understanding of the
teachings of Buddhism’s critics, did not just remain at the academy in Kyoto, but were also
spread to other regions through former students and scholars. In some instances, the actions of
Gohōjō alumni had significant political consequences. A famous example is that of two
graduates of the Gohōjō, Ishikawa Tairei and Hoshikawa Hōsawa, who were leaders in the
Ōhama Uprising in Mikawa.
383
Ishikawa and Hoshikawa, upon graduating from the Gohōjō,
founded a local group in Aichi Prefecture called the Mikawa Dharma Preservation Society
384
in
1869. Responding to increasingly hostile actions of the Meiji government’s haibutsu kishaku
policy, the society quickly accumulated thousands of local followers. Tensions continued to
escalate, and by 1871 a meeting between government officials and the Society’s representatives
ended with the brutal attack and death of a young government official by an angry mob. All told,
the government arrested and tried seventy-seven people, fifty-one of whom where priests.
Hoshikawa was sentenced to ten years of banishment but died in prison before his sentence was

382
Ketelaar 1993: 85.
383
Ōhama Sōdō 大浜騒動. This event is chronicled in detail in Ketelaar 1993: 77-86.
384
Mikawa Gohōkai 三河護法会
92

carried out; Ishikawa was beheaded as the main leader of the uprising. Though the Gohōkai’s
initial demands were in fact met following the incident, it was not without profound cost. In
addition to the lives lost, Jōdo Shinshū temples were put under new harsh regulations that
restricted priests’ ability to travel and to hold public gatherings.
385
Ishikawa and Hoshikawa were
among the first Ōtani priests to attempt to apply what they had learned at the Gohōjō in their
local communities, and the severe consequences of their actions demonstrate just how much was
at stake for everyone involved.
In addition to the diffusion of non-Buddhist studies and progressive reformers to regions
beyond the major educational centers, the Gohōjō also dispatched alumni, Hosokawa Sengan,
386

Tatsuyama Jiyō,
387
and Seki Shinzō
388
to investigate Christian activity in Nagasaki. Although
Ōtani's sources do not include this, Seki also worked as a spy for the government, reporting on
Christian activities until 1872.
389
The Ōtani sources only explain that the Nagasaki trip made
major contributions to the Gohōjō's Christian research.
390
In assessing the final years of the
Gohōjō, the ODN explains that when the ban on Christianity was overturned in 1873, the sense
of urgency within the Ōtani denomination to study foreign subjects decreased.
391
This decline in
interest contributed to the eventual closure of the Gohōjō. Notto Thelle explains that this abrupt
move by the government to decriminalize Christianity, motivated largely by diplomatic pressure,

385
Ketelaar 1993: 83.
386
細川千巖 (1834-1897)
387
竜山慈影 (1837-1921)
388
関信三 (1843-1880)
389
Sakae Kuniyoshi has produced the only monograph on Seki Shinso to date. After Nagasaki, Seki
traveled abroad to study Western forms of early childhood education and became the primary architect of
Japan’s first kindergartens. He also became a Christian convert. See Kuniyoshi 2005.
390
ODN: 46.
391
ODN: 60.
93

put Buddhists in an awkward position. Until then, Buddhists sects had worked with the Meiji
government to suppress Christianity, a role they had comfortably served in the Tokugawa period
too. The Gohōjō alumni working as spies is one example of this. When the ban on Christianity
lifted, Buddhists’ lost much of their motivation for anti-Christian efforts.
392
This strongly
suggests that Buddhist cooperation with the government to suppress Christianity in the early
Meiji was largely motivated by a desire to maintain a strong relationship with the state. The
ODN reinforces this notion by explaining that interest in foreign subjects did not originate from
academic interest in the material, but does not go so far as to explicitly attribute the push for
foreign subjects to the political advantages expertise in foreign subjects might afford the sect.
393

We will revisit the Gohōjō again in the next chapter, where we will transition to a focus
on the changes experienced at the level of individuals and examine in greater detail the high-
stakes tensions between reformist and conservative factions of priests. For now, we remain at the
institutional level, where the case study of the Gohōjō is instructive as one of the earliest and
most detailed examples we have of experiments within a Buddhist sect to reform its clerical
curricula to meet the shifting needs of the time. In order to determine the degree to which the
Gohōjō was or was not representative of its time, however, we need to look at additional
examples. In the following section, I analyze a sampling of Meiji period curricula at other
Buddhist institutions to identify commonalities and differences.

392
Thelle 1987: 47.
393
ODN: 60.
94

Buddhist Curricula: A Comparative Analysis
This section examines the curriculum of several early and mid-Meiji era Buddhist higher
educational institutions. I collected these curricula from the institutional histories of Ōtani,
Komazawa, and Taishō Universities and verified with my own archival research wherever
possible. This section focuses on two major developments. The first is changes to the
organization and structure of Buddhist higher education. The second is the expansion of the
breadth and depth of the curricular content. Together, these changes tell a story not only of
Buddhist efforts to comply with shifting educational standards and norms that were taking place
at the national level, but more importantly reveal ways in which Japanese Buddhists interpreted
and institutionalized new forms of knowledge and education in the interest of reforming
Buddhism.
To begin, a brief note about how I am using the terms “curriculum” or “curricula.”
Curriculum is a large umbrella term that can refer to a wide range of educational objects and
phenomena.
394
Here I am primarily interested in two aspects of curriculum: that of the
organizational structures acting as the scaffolding that shapes the course content, and that of the
course content itself— both proposed by school administrators, and to the extent that it is
knowable, the subjects and topics actually studied. We will start with changes to the
organizational structures.

394
Linda Behar-Horenstein outlines common conceptions of curriculum as “plan, system, field of study,
experience, and content,” with newer conceptions of “null, hidden, and transformative” curricula
emerging as a result of post-modern thought. See Behar-Horenstein 2018.
95

Organizational and Structural Changes
As discussed in the previous chapter, Buddhist higher education in the Tokugawa-era
primarily focused on sectarian studies.
395
Toward the end of the period, however, seminaries
began to include a few additional subjects such as Nativism and Confucianism. But with the
attacks on Buddhism and the threat of Christianity in the Bakumatsu and early Meiji periods, the
move to incorporate additional subjects led to the need to restructure educational institutions to
accommodate growing curricula. This restructuring started with the building out of courses into
three categories: (1) intra-sectarian studies, the study of one’s own sect, changed very little in
terms of texts studied; (2) “inter-sectarian studies,”
396
a category for Buddhist subjects falling
outside the institution’s sect (this would eventually grow into the field of Buddhist Studies); and
(3) a category variously named for all other, usually foreign, subjects. At the Gohōjō, for
example, this third category was gaigaku. Together, these three categories represented the
broadest organizing logic behind Buddhist higher education of the time. While all students took
courses in intra-sectarian studies, it was generally the case that they could select a focus that
either continued in a sectarian vein or branched out into other Buddhist or outside subjects.
Take for example the successor to the Ōtani denomination’s Gohōjō’s, the Kanrenjō
(Institute of Penetrating Practice).
397
When the Kanrenjō was tasked with combining the liberal
arts education of the Gohōjō with the more traditional setting of the Gakuryō, the result was a
new program structure that had six tracks. Those tracks were Sectarian Studies, Kegon

395
shūjō 宗乗
396
yojō 余乗
397
貫練場
96

Studies,
398
Tendai Studies,
399
Kusha Studies,
400
Hossō Studies,
401
and Foreign (i.e. Western)
Studies. One’s track determined both one’s main course of study and placement in the
dormitories. All tracks funneled into one of two degree programs (each with six levels): the
Regular Course
402
and the Specialized Course.
403
The Specialized Course, a precursor to a
modern graduate program, could be only be entered upon completion of the Regular Course.
Two decades later, the Kanrenjō, having undergone more name changes, became Shinshū
Daigaku. The Shinshū Daigaku program structure of 1895 contained a “preparatory course”
404

and an advanced “main course.”
405

The institutional histories do not explain the implementation of preparatory courses, but
the introduction of preparatory courses mirrors national education trends that reflected a growing
recognition of the failure of lower level educational institutions to prepare students for university
courses.
406
The national education system,
407
legally in place in 1872, included plans to build 8
universities, 256 middle schools, and 53,670 elementary schools.
408
However, the government

398
Kegonshūgaku 華厳宗学. Part of the Chinese Huayan tradition, the Kegon sect is one of the six Nara
schools of Buddhism Nantōrokushū 南都六宗.
399
Tendaishūgaku 天台宗学
400
Kushashūgaku 俱舎集宗学. Part of the Sarvastivada tradition, the Kusha sect is one of the six Nara
schools of Buddhism.
401
Hossōshūgaku 法相宗学. Part of the Consciousness-only school, the Hossō sect is one of the six Nara
schools of Buddhism.
402
futsūka 普通課
403
senmonka 専門課
404
yoka 予科
405
honka 本科
406
Amano 2009: 110-119.
407
Gakuseido 学制度, established by the Education Order of 1872 and replaced by the Education
Ordinance Kyōikurei 教育令 of 1885.
408
Karasawa 1962: 213.
97

poured most of its resources and attention into higher education, both as symbols of prestige for
a modernizing nation and to meet the practical needs of the state. The elementary and middle
schools were initially funded through the tuition of individual households but eventually fell to
the local governments when that plan proved unsustainable. There was a severe shortage of
formally trained teachers and suitable buildings as well.
409
Under these conditions, the country
lacked enough sufficiently prepared students and the University of Tokyo struggled to fill its
classrooms in its first decade, especially in the areas of law, literature, and natural sciences,
which were less lucrative specializations.
410

The area that the preparation gap was most visible was in foreign language training as
most subjects relied on texts imported from Europe and the United States. This resulted in the
introduction of additional preparatory courses within Japanese higher education in order to
establish a uniform baseline for new students before they continue to more advanced studies.
Education scholar Amino Tetsuo likens this to the preparatory course feature of the French
Grandes Écoles system.
411
It was the Grandes Écoles, he points out, that influenced Meiji
education policy makers in designing a centralized national education system that would promote
national interests.
412
Like the Japanese government, Buddhist sects also focused their resources
at the top and lagged in establishing adequate elementary and middle schools to feed into their
academies. Again, the Buddhist sources do not discuss the reasoning behind these developments,
so we are left to surmise the reason for these structural changes. Based on parallel developments

409
See Passin 1965: 73-75.
410
Amano 2009: 109.
411
The Grandes Écoles system developed in France in the eighteenth century as a state-controlled and
state-serving education system. The goal of this system was to produce a skilled and educated labor force
for the government. See Chapter 3 in R.D. Anderson 2004.
412
Amano 2009: 32-35.
98

on the national level, however, it is possible that the proliferation of preparatory courses at
Buddhist academies could have been a response to the shortage of secondary schools and
inadequate foreign language training.
Even with the new preparatory courses, many of the Meiji era Buddhist academies
transitioned from programs that lasted decades (a common duration was twenty-seven years) to
much shorter programs, usually between three and six years. Miura Shū identifies the abrupt
reduction in program length to a larger phenomenon he calls “compactification.”
413
According to
Miura, this was part of an effort to conform to governmental time limits for schooling.
Representative of this was a predecessor of Taishō University, the Jōdo Sect Great Teaching
Institute,
414
which established a new curriculum in 1887. Whereas their pre-Meiji course,
discussed in the previous chapter, took twenty-seven years to complete, the new course took a
mere eight. The first six years were a preparatory course; the main course was to be completed in
the final two years. Despite the new course taking less than a third of the time to complete, the
subject matter was greatly expanded and diversified, from finance to geography. After
completing the preparatory course, students took a proficiency test. Only those who passed the
proficiency test and demonstrated strong academic ability could advance to the main course. The
main course consisted of classes in sectarian studies and a specialization in one of four other
schools of Buddhist thought: Jōjitsu, Kegon, Hossō, or Tendai.

413
コンパクト化 Miura in Ejima et al 2014: 226.
414
浄土宗大教院 Not to be confused with the Daikyōin, or Great Teaching Institute, of the early Meiji
period. In the mid-Meiji period, upon the dissolution of the government’s Great Teaching Institute, sects
were permitted to run their own Great Teaching Institutes to train and educate their own National
Evangelists. While the Great Promulgation Campaign was formally abolished in 1884, the Jōdo sect
maintained the name Jōdoshū Daikyōin.
99

Curricular Content Changes
Sources do not tell us much about the daily life at these academies. Personal writings
such as the memoir of Nanjō Bunyū tend to recount extraordinary events like protests, which we
will focus on in the next chapter. From institutional histories we know that classes generally took
place in the morning and afternoon most days of the week. There were as many as eight course
periods per day. In addition to the Buddhist ritual calendar that was observed throughout the
year, the school year was marked by exams in the spring and fall, usually in March or April and
again in September or October, depending on the sect. Institutional sources give us more
information about the types of classes that were offered and the texts that were used. Over the
course of the Meiji period, Buddhist academies’ curricula expanded to include more subjects in
the liberal arts. In 1887 for example, the Jōdo Sect Great Teaching Institute established a new
curriculum in its preparatory program. Included were courses on sectarian and other Buddhist
studies, writing and composition, kanbun, geography, world history, mathematics, natural
history, physics, chemistry, philosophy, finance, penmanship, and physical education.
These new subjects suggest that priests were now expected to engage in an ever-widening
variety of fields. This was important for two reasons. First, so that priests had sufficient
foundational knowledge to represent Buddhism in an expanding number of roles and settings
such as international travel, dealing with the government, and in their roles as educators. Second,
in the wake of the upheaval of the centuries-long danka and tera-uke systems, Buddhist monks
no longer assumed the same status within Japanese society. Furthermore, the overhaul in
nationalized education in the Meiji period led to an increase in the average education level of the
general populace. In his research on the development of professionals in modern societies,
Harold Wilensky observes that when education levels rise among the general population, one
100

effect is “greater skepticism about matters professional, more skepticism about the certainties of
practice, [and] some actual sharing in professional knowledge (the mysteries lose their
enchantment).”
415
For priests, this meant the need for more schooling to maintain educational
superiority over the laity.
Wilensky’s observation is still seen as a relevant issue for the priesthood by some
scholar-priests. In a 2004 roundtable discussion between scholars from Japanese Buddhist
universities, Taishō University professor Koyama Tenyū
416
commented:
My personal hope is for scholars in sectarian studies and those who deal with intellectual
history to pursue a much greater level of knowledge in their specializations. This
specialization is what differentiates us from society in general and it’s what allows us to
have a critical voice. Frankly speaking, even though it’s often said that religion has a
degree of non-secularity or a renunciatory quality to it, in reality, unless more people who
embody these qualities appear, it’s difficult to convince society of religion’s value.
417

Koyama’s statement highlights the effect of a continued rise in education levels into the
contemporary period on the status of the priesthood. Thus, in a process that began in the Meiji
period, the expanded curricular model both allowed priests to remain members of the intellectual
class and at the same time, created opportunities to professionalize the priesthood to serve as
modern educators for the Meiji state.
418
As discussed earlier in the chapter, beginning with their

415
Wilensky 1964:150.
416
小山典勇
417
Fujii et al 2004: 455.
418
This vision of priests as educators for the new state existed in theory but was never fully realized due
to legal developments over the course of the Meiji period that drew stricter separations of religion and
state. The role of these nascent Buddhist universities in the professionalization of the priesthood is
discussed in greater detail in the next chapter.
101

active participation in the Meiji state’s Great Promulgation Campaign as National Evangelists for
the Great Teaching Institute, many Meiji Buddhists believed education was the ideal tool through
which Buddhism could reassert its value to the state, beginning with a well-educated priesthood.
Within the Ōtani denomination’s Kanrenjō, the variety of courses on different styles of
writing composition within the Kanrenjō’s curricula offers additional insight into the varied roles
student priests were being groomed to assume. These included contemporary writing,
retranslation, memorials, government documents, personal letter writing, and narrative. Though
many of these writing styles were taught to scholar-priests in previous eras,
419
the rapidly
shifting social and political environment necessitated renewed attention to these writing genres,
as new governmental regulations and edicts were issued with increasing frequency and the
Japanese language itself was in flux.
420
Thus, even as priests were expected to maintain
traditional skills such as writing composition, these skills took on new meaning and relevance for
the priesthood in the tumult of the Meiji period.
The Kanrenjō’s curriculum did not only focus on the renewal of old skills, however; it
also began offering new courses in geography, history, natural history, and physics. The
Kanrenjō was also one of the first Buddhist schools in the Meiji period to offer a course on
Sanskrit. Interestingly, it is unclear who at this time would have been qualified to teach it.
421

419
Kobayashi (1976) discusses the need for some commoners in the Tokugawa period to be literate in
language used for government communications in order to transmit regulations and declarations to the
local population. He points out that these commoners held the highest positions in their respective
villages and the lowest position in the bureaucratic hierarchy (19). Likewise, priests during this time
served a bureaucratic function in Tokugawa society with the temple registration system and accordingly
needed to possess appropriate literacy skills for this role.
420
For a discussion of language reforms of the Meiji period, see Twine 1983.
421
In the preceding Tokugawa era, most Buddhist sects in Japan including Jōdo Shinshū, priests were not
trained in Sanskrit, or bongo 梵語. The esoteric schools had rudimentary training only in writing Sanskrit
102

Though denominational leader Ishikawa Shuntai had studied Sanskrit while abroad in Paris in
1872, he did not pursue these studies long. Nanjō Bunyū, one of Meiji Japan’s first Sanskritists
and Ōtani scholar-priest, would not leave for England to study with Max Müller until 1876, two
years after the Sanskrit curriculum was established.
422
By 1895, the Kanrenjō’s successor,
Shinshū University, had a revised curriculum that consisted of traditional sectarian subjects such
as teachings by the seven Pure Land Patriarchs, as well as studies of the Kusha, Hossō, Kegon,
Tendai, Sanron, Risshū , and Zen schools. For outside studies, coursework included Japanese
literature, Chinese classics and Western philosophy, sciences, mathematics, and a course on
practical skills for proselytizing.
Within the Sōtō Zen sect, one of the earliest surviving curricula dates to 1877 from the
Sōtō Sect Professional School,
423
a predecessor to Komazawa University. Unlike our other case
studies that offer course names without detail about the texts and methods used in the courses,
this example provides some useful insight into the types of texts used. Aside from sectarian
classes on fundamental Zen and Chan texts such as the Shōbōgenzō and the Versed Commentary
on Wanshi’s (Kōan), the Sōtō Sect Academy offered classes on Fazang’s commentary on The
Awakening of Faith, the Sanron and Kusha Schools, and Gyōnen’s Essentials of the Eight Sects.

but few priests learned the grammar or syntactical structure (see Nagao 1971). The notable exception to
this was Jiun Sonja 慈雲尊者 (1718-1804), an ordained Shingon priest whose level of mastery of
Sanskrit was “unprecedented” in Japan (Watt 1984: 195). Jiun wrote a 1000-fascile Guide to Sanskrit
Studies (Bongaku Shinryō 梵學津梁), so while not specified, it is possible this text could have been used
by Buddhist sects in the Meiji period before they had priests of their own to teach courses in Sanskrit.
422
Nanjo was one of two scholars in the Meiji period sent abroad to study Sanskrit. See Chapter 4 for
more detail.
423
Sōtōshū Senmon Gakkō 曹洞宗専門学校
103

Additionally, the school taught many classic Chinese texts including The Analects and the Yi
Jing,
424
as well as Japanese texts like the Shokunihongi and the Dainihonshi.
425

In the foreign studies category, the Sōtō Sect Professional School’s curriculum lists an
impressive array of topics such as Criminal Law and Procedure, Hygienics, Francois Guizot’s
History of Civilization, Herbert Spencer’s Principles of Ethics, and John William Draper’s
History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.
426
The KDN cautions, however, that the list
of foreign subjects were largely aspirational, as the school lacked faculty qualified to teach all of
those subjects. It was not until several years after this course list was published that many of the
foreign subjects were actually taught, and some were never taught.
427
Despite this fact, their
inclusion in the curriculum tells a story about the Sōtō sect’s priorities of the day. The ambitious
list of both Western and Chinese texts suggests an interest on the part of university leadership to
equip young priests with a broad command of foreign literature.

424
The Zen schools have a long tradition of expertise in Chinese literature due to their ties with Chan
lineages in China. Kobayashi places the apex of Zen’s scholarly reputation in Chinese literature in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Kobayashi 1976: 9-10).
425
The Shokunihongi 続日本紀 (en. Chronicles of Japan) and the Dainihonshi 大日本史 (en. History of
Great Japan) are two major works of Japanese historical writing. The former dates to the eighth century
and covers Japan’s Nara period (710-794); the latter is a nativist retelling of the history of Japan up until
the fourteenth century, written over the course of the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.
426
While the selection of Western texts follows some major intellectual trends of the time, such as the
authors above, it is also a result of which books were brought to Japan from the West, either by foreigner
or by Japanese scholars spending time abroad. In the latter group the most influential was Fukuzawa
Yukichi, who said the following about his impact on foreign texts in Japan: “This use of American text
books in my school [Keio University] was the cause of the adoption all over the country of American
books for the following ten years or more. Naturally when students from my school in turn became
teachers, they used the texts they themselves had studied. And so it was natural that those I had selected
became the favored text books throughout the country.” (Fukuzawa 2016: 200).
427
KDN 140-141.
104

One of the most striking similarities across these schools’ curricula is the transition from
a relatively narrow sectarian orientation to a broad-based liberal arts education that included
courses in the sciences, mathematics, history, geography, and Western philosophy. This
expanded curriculum also included a more comprehensive engagement with texts from other
Buddhist sects. This shift must be understood as a result of a variety of factors. The influx of new
sources of knowledge discussed in the Meiji section of this chapter was certainly part of it, as
was the anti-Buddhist rhetoric at the time that painted Buddhism as backward, superstitious, and,
perhaps most dangerously, impractical for the modern age. Competition with Christianity in both
the religious and educational spheres as well as the developing imperial university system
starting with the University of Tokyo, also catalyzed the expansion of curricula in the Buddhist
schools.
Taking cues from trends in higher education both domestically and abroad, most of
Japan’s major sects converged on similar conclusions about the need for a liberal arts curriculum
within their institutes of higher learning in the first few decades of the Meiji period. Whereas in
the Tokugawa period, a Buddhist scholar-priest hoping to study subjects outside of Buddhism
would have attended a series of specialized private academies
428
in each subject they wished to
study, in the Meiji period, the burden increasingly fell on institutions of higher education to offer
a comprehensive curriculum within a single institution. A major influence for this transition is
the model set by the University of Tokyo, which, as discussed in the previous section, even in its
own incipience was creating the mold for higher education in Japan. The University of Tokyo’s
early development, guided by foreigners and Japanese study-abroad returnees, reflected the
changes happening to higher education in the West, especially the United States. Specifically,

428
shijuku 私塾
105

higher education in the United States was moving from a liberal arts college model to a
university model that folded the liberal arts into a research and professionalizing institution.
429

The picture that emerges here is a marked shift from a narrow, seminary-style educational
institution, to something that resembles a modern university, though it would take a few more
decades for this transition to be fully realized. Often sects reached this conclusion even before
they were equipped to realize the diversified curriculum they envisioned. As seen, for example,
in the case of Sōtō Sect Professional School’s courses on English-language texts, or in the Ōtani
denomination’s Sanskrit course at the Kanrenjō’s, curriculum sometimes existed in name only
until the school could find instructors for the new subjects they hoped to teach.
Whether aspirational or realized, each course and text in these curricula has something to
tell us about the educational priorities and intellectual trends of their day. For instance, The
Awakening of Faith and Gyōnen’s Essentials of the Eight Sects are present in nearly every Meiji
curricula I encountered in my research. Miura Shū attributes Gyōnen’s renewed popularity in the
Meiji period to “compactification,” the phenomenon discussed in the previous section. He sees
the revival of Gyōnen as an experiment by Buddhist groups to provide more accessible
summations of Buddhist history and teachings, catalyzed by government guidelines on program
length.
430
These texts also enjoyed renewed popularity among Meiji Buddhists because of their
trans-sectarian approach. James Ketelaar has argued texts such as these were seen as essential
tools to building a united front against Buddhism’s critics.
431
Additionally, the times dictated a
deeper knowledge of Christianity, serving to explain the presence of texts such as the Chinese

429
See Reuben 1996 and Thelin 2011 for more on this.
430
Miura in Ejima et al 2014: 226.
431
Ketelaar 1993: 177.
106

translation of the Bible and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.
432
Prominent Western
philosophers and intellectuals of the day like Herbert Spencer and Francois Guizot also make
frequent appearances in the curricula. Their work was popular in the United States and Europe at
the time and was introduced to Japan by prominent intellectuals like Fukuzawa Yukichi.
433

Another important trend is the proliferation of “practical studies.”
434
As discussed in the
previous chapter, the ‘practical’ is often used polemically to portray desired subjects as either
useful or true, while painting other subjects as useless or false.
435
Thus when discussing
“practical studies,” context is important. In the early Meiji, Fukuzawa Yukichi’s framing of
“practical studies” was perhaps the most dominant. In An Encouragement of Learning he writes:
The object of one’s primary efforts should be practical learning that is closer to ordinary
human needs [than Confucian and Nativist Studies]. For example, a person should learn
the forty-seven-kana syllabary, methods of letter writing and of accounting, the practice of
the abacus, the way to handle weights and measures, and the like. And there are many
additional things to be learned. Geography is the guide to the climates of not only Japan
but also the many countries of the world. Physics is the science that investigates the
properties and functions of the myriad things of the universe. Histories are books that
study the condition of the countries of the past and present through the detailed
chronicling of the historical ages. Economics explains the financial management of self,

432
It is also possible that a renewed interest in Chinese literature had additional value during the Meiji
period, when Japan initiated its imperialist agenda that included China.
433
This is the case, for example, of Guizot, who was a favorite of Fukuzawa.
434
jitsugaku 実学
435
Sawada 2004 and de Bary 1979.
107

family, and the state. Ethics expounds the natural principles of personal moral cultivation
and of social intercourse.
436

Proponents of these subjects argued their practicality because it was necessary for priests to be
familiar with Western forms of knowledge in order to engage in global discourses about religion.
This is reflected in the curricula, as Buddhist higher educational institutions offered courses
deemed ‘practical’ for the times and also included courses that focused on acquiring specific
skills such as finance, translation, and government correspondence. Though these courses were
not offered consistently in Buddhist universities across the Meiji period, they nevertheless
provide some insight into the shifting needs of the Buddhist community at the time.
It was not only breadth of courses that expanded, but it was also depth too. However,
Miura cautions against any assumptions that expanded course offerings during this period
naturally led to well- rounded priests.
437
On the contrary, he points out that many students used
the growing course list to become more specialized, selecting ever more narrow subjects. It was
these scholars who pioneered the kind of sectarian scholarship that has proliferated into the
present day and dominated the field of Japanese Buddhist Studies for the last century. Thus,
while priests were being educated in more subjects, many were also giving rise to a new
professional role for themselves, that of a modern scholar priest. In the ODN this intensive, full
time study for the priesthood is likened to a farmer cultivating the land or a merchant conducting
trade.
438
This analogy suggests that from the perspective of the Ōtani denomination, these
educational developments in the Meiji period were significant in linking the occupation of the
modern priesthood with higher education.

436
Fukuzawa 2016: 4-5.
437
Miura in Ejima et al., 2014.
438
ODN: 79.
108

Conclusion
The first section of this chapter examined the ideas, institutions, and individuals
undergirding the national and global education landscape of the early Meiji from which these
proto-universities emerged. A brief exploration of larger global trends in higher education
demonstrated the scale and gravity of these questions of the relationship between education and
religion in the modern era were by no means limited to Japanese Buddhists. Next, the history of
the Gohōjō revealed a microcosm for the intellectual and religious debates occurring in many
Buddhist circles in the early Meiji period. Conservatives in the Ōtani denomination wanted
curricula to reinforce traditional sectarian ideas and practices. This approach as it related to
Buddhist education included a renewed emphasis on sectarian texts and ritual and an intentional
exclusion of the study of Western subjects. For reformers, the way to survive all this change was
not to return to tradition but to adapt with the times by expanding curricula to best equip priests
for the modern, increasingly globalized world. Lastly, comparing curricula across institutions
and over time allowed us to examine important intellectual trends within the Japanese Buddhist
world and brought into focus emerging new ideas about the nature and function of Buddhist
higher education.
These curricular reforms in the early Meiji period expanded the breadth of study for
student priests and adapted traditional Buddhist educational elements like debate and instruction
in composition for a variety of written genres deemed essential for navigating the rapidly
modernizing world. The reforms served not only to affirm traditional roles long held by priests in
Japan, such as that of educator, but also endeavored, with varied success, to carve out new roles
for Buddhist educational institutions through development of a liberal arts education, advanced
research courses, and participation in the emergent nationalized education movement. Although
109

change occurred at different paces and with priorities unique to each sect, the larger impact of
these curricular reforms was the gradual shift from a traditional seminary to a liberal arts
academy. Later in the Meiji, these academies would blossom into institutions that more closely
resembled modern universities. Japan’s major Buddhist sects had many reasons to adopt the
university model, not least of which was a desire to showcase Buddhism’s compatibility with
modern institutions. As we move further into the Meiji period in the next chapter, we will gain
perspective on how these curricular changes sowed the seeds of change within Buddhist
education and ultimately led to larger developments within Buddhism.
In his study on Buddhist monastic curricula in Laos and Northern Thailand, Justin
McDaniel argues that curriculum has the potential to tell us not only about a group’s “ideal
religious authorities of the past” and the “evolving lives” of the actors involved, but also “the
sociohistorical forces that affect the way religious groups educate themselves and their
society.”
439
Following McDaniel’s argument, this study also aimed to showcase curricula not
merely as historical records, but as vehicles for understanding what these schools valued, what
they aspired to do, and their vision for the future. Curricula has allowed us to track the rapidly
shifting priorities of these institutions. It is my hope that more scholars of Japanese religion will
turn to this underutilized resource as a means for better understanding the dialectic relationship
between religious education and broader historical forces.

439
McDaniel 2012: 6.
110

Part II: Individuals

111

Chapter 3.
New Shoots: Protests and Professionalization in the Modern Scholar-Priesthood
In Part I, we looked at Buddhist education in the 19
th
century through the lens of
institutional reforms. In Chapter One, we examined the proliferation of Buddhist higher
educational institutions in the Tokugawa period. The seminary-style institutions were in part the
product of Bakufu policies that encouraged sectarian scholarship as means to limit Buddhist
engagement in the political sphere. Buddhist sects responded by establishing large residential
seminaries dedicated to the study of primarily sectarian text and ritual, and to a lesser extent, to
inter-sectarian doctrine. In Chapter Two, we explored the ways these seminaries were
transformed by the influx of new ideas and institutions ushered in by the Meiji Reformation. By
concentrating on curricular reforms, we were able to track debates about the envisioned roles for
the priesthood in a rapidly modernizing Japan. Ultimately, the changes to education reflected in
the curricula reveals an expanding clerical identity—from sectarian to global.
For Part II, our focus shifts from institutions to individuals. The goal is to understand the
effects of the institutional changes explored in Part I at a more granular level. What kind of
impact did these reforms have on individual priests? What were their expectations for their
education and what role did they envision themselves playing in the educational reforms that
were taking place? In this chapter, we will look at the emergence of a new kind of profession that
the nascent universities were central in creating, that of the modern scholar-priest. To do so, we
turn first to several case studies of student-led protests and collective action within Buddhist
universities in the Meiji period. The instances of student-led collective action reveal the
emergence of the first sign of daylight between the fledgling Buddhist universities and their
sects. These protests both reflected and perpetuated the growing intellectual autonomy of
112

Buddhist universities, an essential step in the formation of the scholar-priest as a modern
profession. Next, we trace Buddhist universities’ responses to the evolution of governmental
education policy and law, important for understanding Buddhist efforts to (re-)assert priests as
educators in the public sphere. These efforts, namely, seeking legitimation via governmental
licensing and accreditation, are another step in professionalizing the scholar-priest.
Whereas the previous chapter focused on changes to curricula, this chapter is concerned
with sources of organizational change not so easily controlled by the sects: student protests and
government policy. DiMaggio and Powell remind us that major organizational change is rare, but
when it occurs it is often disruptive and dramatic, taking place “when conditions in which the
social arrangements that have buttressed institutional regimes suddenly appear problematic.”
440

In the case of Japanese Buddhists, we can think of the vacuum created by the collapse of the
centuries-old danka and tera-uke systems that long enmeshed the interests of temples with those
of the Bakufu government, causing both groups to reevaluate their relationship. More to the
point, we can look at the shifting Buddhist educational landscape, and the ways in which
curricular changes introduced new ideas that problematized and challenged prior institutional
norms. Let us look at some examples to illustrate this point.

Student protests and collective action
Protests and conflict at Ōtani’s Institute for the Protection of the Dharma
The first example of a major conflict at a Meiji-period Buddhist educational institution
brings us back to the Jōdo Shinshū Otani denomination’s experimental “Institute for the
Protection of the Dharma,” or the Gohōjō, the founding and curriculum of which we covered in

440
DiMaggio and Powell, 11.
113

the previous chapter. Almost as soon as the Gohōjō was founded at the dawn of the Meiji era in
August 1868, conflict arose over its existence and mission. Recall from Chapter Two that the
Gohōjō was an offshoot of the traditional higher educational institution known as the Takakura
Gakuryō, or “Takakura Academy,” and it was a place for student-priests

to pursue studies in non-
Buddhist subjects, including Christianity, Western science, Chinese Studies and Nativist Studies.
While these subjects were occasionally the topic of lectures in the preceding Tokugawa period,
they were rare within the Ōtani denomination. The Gohōjō’s curriculum was the first of several
sources of intra-denominational tension. This was in part because the Gohōjō’s receptiveness,
especially to Western subjects, concerned proponents of the traditional Jōdo Shinshū curriculum.
Opponents of the Gohōjō argued any shift in scholarly attention away from sectarian teachings
was a dangerous diversion.
Because of the considerable overlap between students and faculty at the Gohōjō and the
Gakuryō, those affiliated with the Gakuryō took sides on this debate as well. While the official
position of the denomination was that the head temple, the Gakuryō and the Gohōjō were
inseparable institutions, in reality, the Gohōjō’s project created rifts among Gakuryō students,
faculty, and denominational leadership.
441
Factions between pro-Gohōjō and anti-Gohōjō
students deepened, and in December of 1868 students sympathetic to the more progressive
Gohōjō wore black robes, while students sympathetic to the more conservative Gakuryō wore
blue robes. In the meeting hall the two sides engaged in a heated debate about the future of the
two schools, though specific content of the debate was not recorded.

441
ODN, 48.
114

One prominent advocate for the traditional curriculum was Genjuin Tokujū.
442
Genjuin
was a conservative instructor at the Gakuryō and an outspoken critic of the Gohōjō. He argued
the amount of Christianity being taught at the Gohōjō was excessive.
443
Here is how he made his
case,
The power to destroy the Dharma is in the hands of Śākyamuni’s disciples...Just as if you
work to eradicate Buddhism’s enemies, more enemies will grow in their place, it
naturally follows that if you willingly (work to) eradicate Christianity, more Christians
will grow in its place...Throw away the “self-power”-driven efforts to destroy non-
Buddhist teachings and entrust in the divine power of Śākyamuni.
444

Tokujū cautions against studying for the purpose of expelling other teachings and instead
promotes a “faith only” educational approach.
445
But student supporters of the Gohōjō expressed
dissatisfaction with the traditional curriculum and criticized conservative instructors and
denominational leaders as “being left behind by the movement of time.”
446

This debate quickly boiled over into classrooms at both the Gohōjō and Gakuryō, and
strict new regulations were implemented.
447
In each classroom, two students were appointed to
observe and mediate conflicts and to maintain order and peace during lectures. Founder of
modern Sanskrit Studies in Japan, Nanjō Bunyū, was a student at the Gakuryō at this time and

442
賢殊院得住
443
Tokuju was especially critical of Senshōin Kūkaku, a pro-reform educator at the Gakuryō and the
Gohōjō, discussed in greater detail below.
444
ODN, 53.
445
yuishin 唯信
446
ODN, 46.
447
It is unclear in the sources available whether these regulations were coming from school
administrators or the sectarian leadership.
115

writes that this system, while usually successful, could not suppress all outbursts. He writes
about one specific incident involving two menacing students: one was referred to simply as
“Kanabō,” a reference to the thick iron rod he carried with him, from Enshū (modern day
Shizuoka); the other was a physically imposing man named Ryūshū from Echigo (modern day
Niigata).
448
The students interrupted Genjuin during his lecture and demanded he explain how
exactly studying Christianity would only serve to promulgate Christianity. According to Nanjō’s
account, the students waited for Genjuin’s response, but he was unable to answer; instead, he
took his seat and looked down toward the floor.
This event only served to embolden Gohōjō students further, and their next move was to
stage a note-burning protest in front of the Gakuryō. The students exclaimed, “There is no way to
take notes on a lecture where you can’t answer our question. Our notebooks are now soiled, and
we may as well burn them and throw them away.” In response to the student protests, Genjuin
was demoted, but debates persisted, and in July 1869, less than a year after the Gohōjō’s
opening, Genjuin resigned his lecturer post.
449

The debate between the role of outside studies and sectarian studies in clerical
curriculum, embodied by Genjuin and the Gohōjō student body, was never fully developed. This
is because the students were successful in driving the most conservative voices like Genjuin out
of the schools, at least for a few years. But reform-minded students also sought change beyond
the lecture halls. While curriculum was one source of contention, another was student frustration
with denominational leadership. Almost as soon as it was founded, Gohōjō students and faculty

448
Nanjō, 1927: 21.
449
ODN, 55.
116

viewed the head temple leadership as meddlesome and viewed their repeated relocations of the
Gohōjō as attempts to hinder the institution’s growth.
Just three months after opening, on the eve of Shinran’s memorial service, the Gohōjō
faculty and students had their first major flare up with the head temple leadership. This clash
took place at a meeting between various representatives from the Ōtani denomination and the
Gohōjō. At this meeting, the head temple leadership gave a presentation on the denomination's
large debts, explained to be a result of rebuilding the head temple and substantial lending to the
Meiji government. The lay leadership argued that because of the impoverished state of the
denomination, the Gohōjō would have to remain small and could not expand to meet pace with
demand. Several outraged Gohōjō students insisted on further explanation from the temple
leadership. Rather than respond, the head temple representatives attempted to leave the meeting,
but were pursued by the angry students. In a particularly vivid image from the incident described
in accounts, temple leaders burst through paper shoji doors of the meeting hall and escaped.
450

In March of 1869, three students from the Gohōjō went directly to the head temple to
submit a letter re-asserting the objective of the Gohōjō, stating, “Since the founding of the
Gohōjō, young volunteers from various regions have gathered. The objective is researching
subjects suitable to the times such as the classics of Shinto, Confucianism, and other Non-
Buddhist teachings.”
451
The students’ letter then demanded reforms of what they called the
“misgovernment” of the sect by the head temple. They called for the resignation of the lay
retainers
452
and the placement of priests in their former roles. Upon receiving the letter, in
reversed roles from the previous incident, the head temple attempted to seize the three students,

450
ODN, 47.
451
ODN, 49. Emphasis added.
452
kashin 家臣, terazamurai 寺侍
117

but they narrowly evaded apprehension by taking refuge in the Gohōjō. Several students,
teachers, and staff at the Gohōjō were punished by the denomination.
Despite being punished for their actions, the students’ demands for reform were heard
and eventually implemented. Prior to the Meiji period, the Ōtani governance structure delegated
all scholarly matters to the Gakuryō. Temple governance was split into two divisions: dharmic
affairs were handled by the clergy and lay (or secular) affairs were handled by lay retainers.
453

Until their removal, these retainers served as critical intermediaries, responsible for relaying all
communications from the head temple to the branch temples. Reform-minded clergy wanted a
bottom-up organizational structure that would enable priests, not lay middlemen, to directly
convey the will of the branch temples to the head temple.
454
In 1870, due in large part to the
persistent protests of student priests, the lay retainer position was abolished. In place of the
retainers, new administrative positions were created that were to be filled by priests.
Kashiwahara Yusen has argued that the most significant change in the modernization of
denominational affairs was the elimination of these lay retainers from the denominational
governance structure.
455
Many of the first priests to be appointed to these new positions were
Gohōjō alumni, including Ishikawa Shuntai
456
and Atsumi Kaien.
457
Kashiwahara points to this
fact as evidence for the impact of the protest culture fostered at the Gohōjō on the
denominational reforms.
458

453
There were hōmu 法務 and zokumu 俗務 respectively.
454
Kashiwahara 1986, 25.
455
Ibid.
456
石川舜台 (1842-1931)
457
渥美契縁 (1840-1906)
458
Kashiwahara 1986: 32.
118

Over the next two years, the power struggle between reformer and conservative factions
persisted and tensions grew stronger, culminating in the assassination of Senshoin Kūkaku, a
prominent instructor at the Gohōjō and Gakuryō. Kūkaku was born in 1804, resided at Kyoto’s
Fushimi Saihōji,
459
and trained at Nara’s Tokuganji.
460
Little else is known about his early life.
We know he was ordained at Saihōji in 1835. Later he was known as Tōei
461
and Eishū
462
and
ultimately Senshōin. He studied under Ungein Daigan,
463
the prolific Buddhist poet, painter, and
instructor at the Gakuryō. In 1849, when Daigan retired, Kūkaku became an assistant lecturer at
the age of 45. Two years later, in 1851, he was involved in a heresy incident
464
known as the
Tonjo Jiken.
465
His involvement led to his expulsion from the priesthood until 1863. His clerical
status was restored, however, and he became an instructor at the Gakuryō in 1865. In 1868, he
led efforts to establish the Gohōjō. During his tenure at the Gohōjō, his areas of instruction were
quite varied: he taught Christianity with the Chinese translation of the Bible,
466
John Bunyan’s

459
伏見西方寺
460
徳願寺
461
東瀛
462
瀛洲
463
雲華院大含
464
異安心 ianjin
465
頓所事件 This incident actually began in the 1830s and was only resolved with the expulsion of
Kūkaku in 1851.
466
The Christian Bible was not published in Japanese until 1872, a year after Kūkaku’s death. For more
on the history of Japanese translations of the Bible see Ebisawa Arimichi (1989) and Suzuki Norihisa
(2006).
119

The Pilgrim’s Progress,
467
and Shinran’s Two Aspects of Deep Mind.
468
He was influenced by
the work of Higuchi Ryūon
469
and mentored many future leaders within the denomination.
470

In 1871, Kūkaku was beheaded by an unknown assassin. Though no one was charged
with his murder, it is widely believed to have been committed by one of the lay retainers who
was ousted under the sectarian reforms Kūkaku helped to lead. Once painted as a radical and
dangerous heretic by the conservative leadership, Kūkaku was later redeemed as a visionary
reformer who helped usher the Ōtani denomination into the modern era. The straw raincoat he
wore every day became a symbol for the academic pursuits of Ōtani University. It is held in the
Ōtani archives and is periodically exhibited in Ōtani University’s museum. The ODN places
Kūkaku’s life and the history of the Gohōjō as reflections of the larger dilemmas of sectarian
education that persist into the present day: that of doctrine versus practice, or the traditional

467
The Japanese title is Tenrorekitei 天路歴程. According to the National Diet Library’s Collaborative
Reference Database, it was first published in Kanbun Chinese in 1853, and in colloquial Chinese in 1865.
Japanese translations were not produced until the late 1870s.
(https://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/detail?page=ref_view&id=1000223350, Accessed December 20, 2019.)
468
Nishujinshin 二種深信. Other texts he is known to have lectured from include: Igyōbon Sanzengi 易行
品・散善義, Shakkyō Shōmyū 釈教正謬, Gengibun 玄義分神, Shinkoku ketsugihen 神国決疑編,
Hajakenshōshō 破邪顕正鈔.
469
樋口龍温(1800-1885) Higuchi was a vocal defender of Buddhism against attacks by its critics,
especially from nativist scholar Hirata Atsutane. He lectured at the Gakuryō and was the first Director of
the Gohōjō. See Auerback 2016: 156-158.
470
This includes Nanjō Bunyū who makes frequent mention of Kūkaku in his memoir. After Kūkaku’s
death, two of his disciples, Ishikawa Shuntai and Atsumi Kaien, became denominational leaders. The two
colleagues fell on opposite sides of the debate over the proper direction to take the Ōtani denomination,
eventually becoming fierce rivals. While Ishikawa planned inspection tours abroad, established a
Translation Bureau (honyaku kyoku 翻訳局) and created a scholarship program to train and education
exceptionally gifted students within the denomination, Atsumi prioritized eliminating the group’s massive
debt and oversaw large-scale construction projects with the rebuilding of the Founder’s Hall and Amida
Hall.
120

sectarian approach to learning versus a more “practical” approach to learning that incorporates
the perspectives of the nation and society.
471

As mentioned above, Kūkaku’s untimely death was likely an act of retaliation for
denominational reforms. These reforms, such as the removal of lay retainers from the Otani
governance structure, were in large part a result of the protests and collective actions covered
thus far. In addition to organizational reforms, a Public Discussion Hall
472
was established in
1873 as a place for the clergy, laity, and students to openly express their opinions. According to
available sources, the student unrest of the early Meiji period in the Ōtani denomination was
followed by a brief lull, only to resurface at the turn of the century.
473

The next major period of protest in the Ōtani denomination was led by Kiyozawa Manshi
and his Shirakawa reform movement beginning in 1890.
474
Much has been written about the
movement, so I will summarize it here only briefly.
475
Led by Kiyozawa, a young University of
Tokyo-educated priest, the Shirakawa group sought to modernize and restructure the sect and its
educational institutions. Their demands of the sect included greater support for—and emphasis

471
ODN, 69. Note the invocation of the “practical” (jissen 実践) here, juxtaposed with sectarian studies.
472
Shūgisho 衆議所
473
This is not to say that the denomination did not experience conflict in the mid-Meiji, only that, in
contrast to the early Meiji period conflict was concentrated at the administrative level. See, for example,
the disputes between Ishikawa Shuntai and Atsumi Kaien covered in Inoue 2012.
474
Shirakawa-tō 白川党, named after the northern Kyoto Shirakawa neighborhood to which Kiyozawa
moved at the start of his ascetic practice. Jeffrey Schroeder dates the beginning of this movement to
Kiyozawa’s abrupt turn toward asceticism in 1890 (Schroeder 2015: 196); other scholars conflate the
beginning of this movement with the establishment of Manshi’s Kyōkaijigen-sha 教界時言社, a
publishing group for the group’s journal of the same name, Kyōkaijigen, or Timely Words for the
Religious World.
475
For a concise summary of this movement in English, see Schroeder 2015: 197-199. In Japanese see
Moriya 1996, Hashida 2003, and Hashimoto 2003.
121

on—doctrinal studies and the empowerment of branch temples. When initial attempts at reform
failed, the group turned to journal publishing to propagate their ideas. This journal, Timely
Words for the Religious World, ran from 1896 to 1898. At the Gohōjō’s successor, Shinshū
University, students who expressed their support for the journal and the Shirakawa movement
found themselves expelled. The Ōtani denomination also defrocked the leaders of the movement
in 1897.
Cut off from sectarian support, Kiyozawa and his associates worked as teachers at local
schools to support themselves as word of their reform movement spread rapidly outward from
Kyoto. The movement’s message was able to spread with the help of the journal, of which seven
thousand copies were circulated, and through the travels of the expelled university students. The
culmination of these efforts was a petition signed by twenty-thousand members of the Ōtani
denomination in support of the reforms.
476
The Shirakawa movement was ultimately successful
in getting the conservative Head of Sect Affairs, Atsumi Kaien, removed from his post and his
longtime progressive rival, Ishikawa Shuntai, named as his successor. The clerical status of the
leaders of the movement, including Kiyozawa, was restored in 1898, and Kiyozawa would spend
the next few years as President of Shinshū University. As President, once more a powerful
insider, he continued to clash with sect leaders as he worked to implement his reforms.
The restoration of Kiyozawa’s status was by no means the end of major conflict between
the Ōtani denomination and Ōtani University. The conflict and controversies continued well into
the first half of the twentieth century and would take us beyond the scope of this study.
477
For

476
Hashimoto 2003: 26. For examples further into the Meiji and subsequent periods, Jeffrey Schroeder’s
2015 dissertation includes an in-depth discussion of conflicts at Ōtani University including the famous
Kaneko Daiei heresy incident. (see Schroeder 2015: 192-261).
477
These conflicts and controversies are well outlined in Schroeder 2015, especially Chapter 3.
122

our purposes, what is notable about these controversies is the novel application of the term
ianjin, or “heresy,” by conservatives to condemn reformists’ use of Western educational
modalities. That is, unlike more conventional understandings of the notion of ianjin that center
on theological disputes over views seen as threatening to orthodox positions, ianjin was
appropriated by conservatives to attack modern approaches to doctrinal study.
478

Student Strikes at the Sōtō Academv
Like Ōtani, the Sōtō Zen sect’s Sōtō Academy
479
made swift efforts in the Meiji period to
expand and modernize its education. As mentioned in the previous chapter, beginning in 1883, in
addition to the continuation of sectarian studies, students could select either a Chinese or
Western studies elective track, and in 1886, a research course was established. Starting in 1889,
there was a series of student protests over a ten-year period that resulted in school closures.
480

We do not have many surviving details for the first two protests. The KDN explains only that
students and the school’s administration began to clash in the end of 1888. This led to the
expulsion en masse of the student body and the subsequent closure of the school in January
1889. The following month, the school superintendent, Tsuji Kenkō,
481
resigned, and Hara
Tanzan was appointed Acting Superintendent.
482
This conflict flared up once more in 1891, and

478
Ward 2004: 139; Schroeder 2015: 193. Schroeder also argues that this conflict was also closely linked
to a series of institutional reforms, which he lists on page 193.
479
Sōtō Daigakurin 曹洞大学林, this is the former name for Komazawa University. In accordance with
Ministry of Education guidelines accompanying the University Ordinance of 1918, sectarian universities
were restricted from bearing the names of their sect and as a result, all sectarian universities had to change
their names. See Hayashi 2009.
480
The details of these events including the surviving primary sources are found in KDN, 179-197.
481
辻顕高 (1824-1890)
482
Hara’s acting status was made permanent in 1891.
123

the school was forced to close again for a few months until January of 1892, when the formerly
expelled students were allowed to re-enroll. While we know little about the causes of these
earlier protests and resultant closures, some aspects are hinted at in a subsequent 1899 protest,
from which more details and documents survived.
In December 1899, the entire student body (save for two students who opted out)
483

submitted to the school and sectarian authorities a petition of “no confidence” in the school’s
Vice Principal, Tsutsukawa Hōkai,
484
and Dean, Oka Sōtan.
485
The complaints lodged against the
sect-appointed school administrators fell into two categories. First, students accused the
administrators of neglecting their duties. This included changing lesson times without notice,
disorderly lessons, failure to sufficiently answer student questions, and a lack of transparency
about rule changes. Second, the students accused the men of behaving in an improper manner.
They describe the two men as having terrible tempers, complaining that they were regularly rude
to students, and cited instances of harsh name-calling such as referring to groups of students
using the counter for animals (ippiki, nihiki, etc), and “non-Buddhists.”
486
In another complaint,
Oka is accused of viewing students like slaves (dorei), citing an instance where Oka warned that
if students questioned the rules, they might be asked to leave the school. The students asserted
that they were unable to respect Tsutsukawa and Oka as leaders or as academics, and they
implored the administrators to investigate the matter. Students also filed a second petition to the
Department of Sect Affairs requesting both men be disciplined.

483
The names of the two students who opted out were Akihira Tokujō 秋平徳乗 and Kubota Jisshū 久保
田実宗 (KDN, 182).
484
筒川方外 (dates unknown). The original term for Vice Principal is kyōtō 教頭.
485
丘宗潭 (dates unknown). The original term for Dean was gakkan 学監.
486
gedōto 外道徒
124

For their part, Oka and Tsutsukawa wrote the sect disputing the allegations. After
lamenting the students’ behavior and slump in academics, they explained that since the time of
their respective appointments, they were single-mindedly devoted to reforming the school, which
necessitated a change in teaching methods. The two administrators claimed that it was not them,
but the students whose conduct was rude and improper. They also described students as being
chronically absent from class, breaking curfew, and not taking their studies seriously.
Importantly, Tsutsukawa and Oka attributed much of the student’s bad conduct to the influence
of former students from the past decade who had served as agitators and masterminds to the
current student body’s actions. Regarding the use of animal counters to refer to students, they
explained that had been in reference to these rebellious graduates of the school and not to anyone
in the current student body. With this, the administrators directly connect the prior conflicts from
the late 1880s to the current dispute, suggesting that earlier tensions were never fully resolved.
The rest of the school administration sided with Oka and Tsutsukawa. Their primary
concern was that students had broken school rules by being insubordinate, including the act of
petitioning itself. As further evidence of insubordination, the school cited the refusal of the third-
year class to attend any of the Vice Principal’s lectures on the Shōbōgenzō. The sect found itself
in a difficult position, wedged between the students and administrators. At one point they
requested Meiji government officials to adjudicate the matter on their behalf, but this request was
denied. This is consistent with the government’s overall retreat from sectarian affairs by the mid-
1880s.
487
That the sect would still turn to the government for mediation suggests, however, that a
power vacuum may have arisen as a result of the privatization of religious organizations.
Ultimately, the sect sided with the administrators but said that the students could avoid expulsion

487
See Jaffe 2001: 70-71.
125

if they repented in front of the main Buddha image and agreed to resume taking classes from
Oka and Tsutsukawa. The students refused to comply with the sect’s wishes, and as a result, all
students were expelled. The teachers who supported their cause were fired. Without students, the
school was forced to temporarily close.
488

Analysis
It is useful to consider these events not as isolated incidents, but as indicators of
important developments on at least three (overlapping) strata: (1) student strikes in Japan (2)
student strikes in the West, and (3) institutional change and the professionalization of the
priesthood. In this section, I offer these strata as frameworks for understanding Meiji-era
Buddhist student protests by situating them within a wider context.
First, Buddhist students in Meiji Japan were not the only students protesting in this
period. Rather, they were part of a nascent student-activist subculture taking shape in
modernizing Japan. In his study of Japan’s radical student movement of the 1920s and 1930s,
Henry D. Smith defines student activism in the Meiji period using an ascending typology:
student rows, school strikes, and political protests.
489
Smith describes student rows as “brawls,
pranks, and riots,” seen most often in the lower-level schools and less so at the university level.

488
Conflict of this sort were not exclusive to the Sōtō sect and Ōtani denomination. My research
uncovered a few additional instances of protests, but with insufficient detail for analysis. There were also
instances of protest at Tokyo Imperial University’s law school. In 1894, the government changed the
executive and judicial appointment system by requiring an examination for all applicants, whereas
previously Tokyo Imperial University law graduates could be appointed without examination. In
response, Tokyo Imperial University law graduates staged a total boycott of the first exam. See Amano
2009: 312.
489
Smith 1972: 21-24.
126

School strikes, Smith points out, were more organized than the chaotic outbursts of student rows,
but usually lacked ideological underpinnings and were limited to a single school. Political
protests, in contrast to school strikes, possessed ideological underpinnings that transcended the
grievances of a single school, and therefore commonly united students across multiple schools.
The protests discussed in this chapter align with Smith’s second category of school
strikes. Like our case studies, student dissatisfaction with administrative decisions was at the root
of most strikes. Smith cites examples of protests over the firing of a popular teacher or demands
to fire an unpopular one, being unhappy with dormitory rules such as curfew times, disputes over
curricular changes, and complaints about dining hall food.
490
While impossible to account for all
instances of student protest, Morooka Sukeyuki’s study of student strikes in the mid-Meiji period
found national press coverage of twenty-five strikes.
491
In another method of accounting for the
frequency and impact of student strikes, Morooka points to the regularity of Ministry of
Education edicts and directives aimed at curtailing student strikes.
492
Though the majority of
these occurred in middle schools and high schools, a university strike was recorded at Keiō
University in early 1888. Later that same year, the first strike discussed above took place at Sōtō
Academy.
Smith argues that through Meiji-era school strikes “Japanese students came to be
convinced that they had the right to a voice in school administration, and experience showed

490
Smith 1972: 23
491
Morooka Sukeyuki (1955: “Meiji nijūnendai no shakai undo nenpyō,” Nihonshi kenkyū 25: 40-60), as
cited in Smith 1972: 24. I was unable to attain a scan of Morooka’s original work due to COVID
constraints on library availability.
492
Morooka 1955 as cited in Smith: 24.
127

such techniques as strikes and demonstrations to be effective guarantees of that right.”
493
The
occurrence of student strikes in analogous school settings outside the Buddhist world enable us
to contextualize the behavior and motivations of protesting student-priests as part of wider
cultural change. Further, the Tokyo location of Sōtō Academy’s campus increases the likelihood
that Sōtō student-priests would have known of similar student protests taking place around them,
including the one on Keiō’s campus, less than two kilometers away.
494

It is important to consider that these young Buddhists, belonging to a privileged class
receiving the highest level of Buddhist education available, identified strongly with their role as
students in addition to their role as priests. In fact, Kiyozawa Manshi wrote that he initially
joined the priesthood because it provided him access to an education that he otherwise could not

493
Smith 1972: 25. Smith opens his book by highlighting the tension between students’ self-image as
“independent critics who stand apart from established institutions and see the flaws and tensions to which
those enmeshed in the institutions are blind” and the reality that it is that very same institution that “molds
student attitudes and thus, unwittingly, prepares the way for radical behavior but also provides a base of
organization without which students would be powerless to exert political pressure,” (1). This tension is
explored throughout his later chapters that deal with the late Taishō and early Showa periods, but is
underdeveloped in the sections on the Meiji period. To explain how students found their voices in the
Meiji period, Smith gives only passing mention to factors such as behavioral tendencies of youth, rapid
urbanization, and a shared belief in a ‘natural elite’ to lead Japan. This is perhaps because Smith’s study
does not focus on this period, but it nevertheless has the effect of underemphasizing the role of curricular
and institutional change in the development of student protest culture.
494
In 1888, Keiō’s campus was in the same location as it stands today, in the Minato area of Tokyo. Sōtō
Academy’s campus, however, was not in the Komazawa neighborhood, but in the Kita Higakubodanchi
neighborhood (this area is now known as the Roppongi Hills). In 1888, Keiō’s and Sōtō’s campuses were
less than two kilometers from one another.
128

have afforded. In the following passage, Kiyozawa speaks of the decision to become a “bonze,” a
colloquialism for priest:
495

The reason I thought to become a priest was that if I became a bonze and went along to
Kyoto I would be given a good education at the expense of the head temple. Since I was
living in circumstances that made it completely impossible for me to study as I wanted to, it
was a delight to be provided with a life-long education, so I became a bonze.
496

As Kiyozawa expresses here, the priesthood was the means to an education and not, as one might
expect, the other way around. This perspective and those of other similarly motivated student-
priests are relevant to consider because they represent an interest group with priorities (and,
arguably, loyalties) that may have differed from some of their more vocationally minded peers. It
is reasonable to assume that student-priests like Kiyozawa had a vested interest in the growth and
success of their educational institutions. This assumption is supported by the fact that Kiyozawa
led educational reform movements designed to foster independence from sectarian control.
Therefore, while Buddhist values and ideas were employed by both sides in the case studies of
Buddhist school protests discussed above, it is useful to remember that the dissenting students at
Buddhist schools were not operating in isolation.
497

495
Bonze is of French origin and stems from the Portuguese term bonzo which was the transliteration of
the Japanese term bonsō or bonzō ( 凡僧), one of the words for priest. (“Bonze.” Merriam-Webster.com
Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bonze. Accessed 23 Oct.
2020.)
496
Kiyozawa Manshi Zenshū I 1953: 539 as translated in Johnston 1972: 51. See also Hashimoto 2003:
14.
497
One final note on this point is that, to the extent there is research on Meiji-era student protests,
Buddhists are currently underrepresented in this scholarship. In future studies, the inclusion of Buddhist
student-priests would provide a more complete picture of the diverse array of student populations taking
part in collective action. For instance, Henry Smith’s study quickly assesses Buddhist schools in the Meiji
129

Japan was not the only country experiencing a rise in (Buddhist or otherwise) student
protests during this period. Another layer we can add to our understanding is to view these
protests as part of a broader global trend in higher education at the time. Western higher
education historians have looked at this phenomenon as a kind of “bottom-up,” or “consumer-
driven” movement coinciding with a series of educational reforms that began in the late
eighteenth century and stretched into the early twentieth century. When trying to understand the
boom of student protests in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century America, John R. Thelin
posits,
There were instances of student demonstrations, revolts, and acts of sabotage, rebellious
incidents in which students seemed to be expressing genuine dissatisfaction with archaic
administration, disrespectful faculty, and a dull course of study irrelevant to the
issues they would face as adults.
498

For Thelin, the answer stems from student interest in novel intellectual trends at the time such as
liberty, individual rights, and self-determination. Though contextual distinctions cannot be
overlooked, the role of these new ideas in overturning conventional educational models is
nevertheless relevant here. In Japan, this began with curricular reforms in the early Meiji period,
a result of intrepid Japanese scholars like Fukuzawa Yukichi in the secular context and Nanjō
Bunyū in the Buddhist context. These scholars carved out new channels for the flow of ideas
between Japan and Western countries. Like their counterparts in the West, students at Buddhist

period as being generally too conservative to foster political protest. Other studies of Buddhist activism in
the Meiji such as James Ketelaar’s Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan (1993) and James Mark
Shields’ Against Harmony: Progressive and Radical Buddhism in Modern Japan (2017) look at specific
organizations and historical figures, but do not treat student-priests as a collective category.
498
Thelin 2011: 64. Emphasis added.
130

schools interpreted some of these new ideas and approaches to learning in ways that contributed
to a critical reassessment of their relationship to authority. This reassessment revealed political,
generational, and ideological fault lines within the sects and their universities and led to clashes
with sectarian leadership. The result was protests and collective action aimed at challenging
conventional power dynamics within the sect and student-priests taking ownership over their
education.
We might also interpret the work of these reformers and protesters as examples of
discursive institutionalism. Discursive institutionalism has sought to address some of the
shortcomings of new institutionalism when applied to global contexts.
499
Previous new
institutionalist scholarship added to our understanding of the worldwide diffusion of modern
institutions such as museums, universities, prisons, and even symphonies, theorizing this
phenomenon as “global isomorphism.”
500
Likewise we may add to this list the global
isomorphism of protests and collective action. But global isomorphism does little to explain the
role of local actors beyond seeing them as simply conforming to institutional norms. In contrast
to this top-down view, discursive institutionalism views local actors as “utilize[ing] world
cultural discourses”
501
to facilitate institutional change. Accordingly, discursive institutionalists

499
New institutionalism is a broad umbrella term for approaches that center institutions, broadly defined.
It emerged in the 1970s as a corrective response to rational choice explanations for individual interests
and agency by instead revealing the dialectic ways in which institutions and individuals are co-
constitutive.
For a comprehensive critique of the limits of new institutionalism, see Schmidt 2008, 2015, 2020.
Schmidt is careful to distinguish her use of the term “discourse” from the postmodernist use of the term in
that her definition is a “more generic term that encompasses not only the substantive content of ideas but
also the interactive processes by which ideas are conveyed” (Schmidt, 2008: 305).
500
Meyer et al 1992.
501
Alasuutari 2015: 169.
131

argue that translation rather than diffusion is a more fitting label for the processes that produce
global isomorphism.
This notion of translation is relevant for understanding the push for curricular and
structural changes as part of a broader process of Buddhist engagement with the emerging global
cultural discourses around higher education and the category of ‘world religions.’ In the Ōtani
case study above, but also in the curricular reforms seen across the case studies discussed in the
previous chapter, much of the conflict centered on whether or how much to integrate new
subjects from the west into Buddhist higher education. The pro-reform actors were active agents
interpreting and translating these subjects for their own purposes while at the same time
considering whether or how much to invest in inserting Japanese Buddhism into the developing
framework of the world religions and its accompanying category of study.
502
Seen in this light,
the conflict and collective actions between reformer and conservative priests at Buddhist
universities highlight the dialectic between local actors and global discourses and serve as an
important corrective to portrayals of unilateral or top-down diffusion of modern models of higher
education.
When examining the relationship between collective action and institutional change it is
also important to ask, what are the feedback mechanisms between collective interests and
institutions and do institutions represent collective outcomes that exceed the sum of individual
interests?
503
I contend that the collective action of student-priests in Buddhist higher education in
the Meiji period created space for experimentations in more intellectual if not ideological
autonomy from sectarian authority. Thus, collective action established an important feedback

502
Examples of the latter include sending priests to study abroad and launching western-language
research publications.
503
DiMaggio and Powell, 9.
132

mechanism between constituent interests (in this case, students and occasionally faculty too) and
institutions (both the universities and the sectarian organization). Further, while many of their
efforts were initially unsuccessful in their expressed aims, it was often the case that the students’
demands (the ousting of unpopular faculty, the restructuring of organizational leadership, the
support for curricular expansion, etc.) were eventually met and resulted in a transformation of the
institution. In this light, we can see the protests and to an extent, their outcomes, as indicators
that these early Buddhist universities inhered qualities that transcended individual constituent
interests.
One final way to understand these events is through scholarship on professionalization. In
the Tokugawa period, the professional sphere of priests was heavily dominated by its hegemonic
authority over the temple registration system and the bureaucratic machine that it produced. With
the repeal of the temple registration system, a void existed where the professional authority of
Buddhists once was. Harold Wilensky explains that “any occupation wishing to exercise
professional authority must find a technical basis for it, assert an exclusive jurisdiction, link both
skill and jurisdiction to standards of training, and convince the public that its services are
uniquely trustworthy.”
504
Buddhists lacked many of these elements following the Meiji
reformation and, as we have seen, Buddhist educational institutions were important sites of the
regrouping process. For Wilensky, the phases of professionalization begin with the “doing full
time the thing that needs doing,” followed in short order by the need for training.
505
The next
step is to form associations, which he describes as such:

504
Wilensky, 138. Recall in Chapter 2 the discussion of the push for nationalizing education in Meiji
Japan and Wilensky’s observation that as rates of public education rise, so too does skepticism about
professionals and their claim to exclusive expertise.
505
Wilensky, 142, 144.
133

All of this is accompanied by a campaign to separate the competent from the incompetent.
This involves further definition of essential professional tasks, the development of internal
conflict among practitioners of varying background, and some competition with outsiders
who do similar work...The newcomers see the oldtimers [sic] as a block to successful
professionalization; the latter see the former as upstarts...what is true of internal conflict is
also apparent in external relations: hard competition with neighboring occupations seems to
go with these later stages of professionalization. All occupations in the human-relations field
have only tenuous claims to exclusive competence.
506

Wilensky highlights here the comingling of internal and external pressures and competition,
generational tensions, and insecurity about what he called “exclusive competence.” The
dynamics described here as early indicators of professionalization were present in Buddhist
higher educational institutions from the earliest days of the Meiji period and are responsible for
many of the external tensions and internal conflicts we have just examined. As we will see in the
next section, as the Meiji period progressed and the government gradually formalized education
policies, this final point of exclusive competence would become an even bigger challenge for
Buddhists.

New Constraints and Fresh Prospects for Buddhists in Meiji Education Policy
While Buddhist institutions were engaged in sustained internal conflict over reform, they
were also faced with not only new constraints but also fresh prospects to participate in the public
sphere stemming from the education policies of the new Meiji government. This section aims to
better understand how Buddhist educators and schools navigated their position in the public

506
Wilensky, 144-145.
134

sphere vis a vis educational policy at a time when religion’s place in modernizing Japan was far
from certain. To do so, we examine several government policies. First, in 1872, was the
establishment of the National Education System.
507
Though intended to disestablish all religion
from public education, the government instead found themselves reliant on resources Buddhists
had in ample supply: buildings and personnel. In 1899, Directive Twelve
508
from the Ministry of
Education barred religious education and activities in any governmentally accredited school.
This was designed to limit the influence of religious groups in education, dealing a substantial
blow to fledgling Buddhist schools and constraining their role in the public sphere. Then, in
1903, the Professional Schools Ordinance
509
broadened accreditation to religious schools and
paved the way for the eventual recognition of Buddhist higher educational institutions as
“universities.” These policies and Buddhists’ responses to them reveal important debates over
the place for religious groups in Japan’s public sphere, especially within education.
In the Meiji period, the start of Buddhist involvement in formalized public education
begins in 1872 with the Great Teaching Institute, discussed in the previous chapter. During this
time, the violent hostilities of the haibutsu kishaku movement were ongoing. Yet despite the
strong anti-Buddhist sentiment, Buddhists actively inserted themselves into the development of
the Meiji state. In March of 1872, for instance, due in part to the advocacy efforts of Buddhist
priests, especially Shin priest Shimaji Mokurai,
510
the exclusively Shinto Ministry of Rites was
replaced with the Ministry of Doctrine.
511
A major focus of this new ministry was the creation of

507
Gakusei 学制
508
Monbushō kunrei jūni gō 文部省訓令十二号
509
Senmon gakkō rei 専門学校令
510
島地黙雷 (1838-1911)
511
Kyōbusho 教部省
135

the Great Teaching Institute, or Daikyōin. This institute was tasked with training National
Evangelists for the government’s Great Promulgation Campaign, discussed in the previous
chapter. Officially, evangelists were charged with instructing the public on the Three Great
Teachings, which were (1) respect for the gods, love of country; (2) making clear the principles
of Heaven and the Way of Man; (3) reverence for the emperor and obedience to the will of the
court.
512
Unofficially, Buddhists leveraged their advantage as members of tradition that had long
relied on the strength of their preaching skills and used their time in front of the public to weave
the fledgling national doctrine with Buddhist teachings.
With the announcement of the first national plan for education, better known as the
Gakusei, in August of 1872, Buddhist groups seized another opportunity to play a role in the
public educational sphere. The Gakusei’s ambitious plan for universal primary education
required both teachers and school buildings, something the Buddhists had in larger supply than
any other group. For centuries, many Buddhist temples had doubled as public educational spaces,
known as terakoya,
513
or temple schools. Though it was the intent of the Gakusei to abolish
terakoya in order to sever any Buddhist ties to public education, this goal was outweighed by the
practical need for ready-made space that temples had in ample supply. Religious education was
even permitted within terakoya, provided it was limited in scope.
514
In 1874, 42.8% of public
schools met in Buddhist temples.
515
Two years later, temples were still the most numerous type
of school site, and the percentage had only decreased to 35.95%.
516
This fortunate coincidence of

512
Translations from Hardacre 1989.
513
寺子屋
514
Monbusho Order No. 37, March 1873.
515
ODN, 72.
516
Tsuchiya 1962: 141.
136

Buddhist supply meeting government demand led many Buddhists to believe that their role as
public educators in a modern Japan was all but cemented. But with the construction of each new
school building and the graduation of each successive class of schoolteachers from the recently
adopted Normal School system,
517
Buddhism’s dominance in public education weakened.
Buddhists would have to find new ways to maintain relevance in this sphere.
While Buddhists were actively serving as National Evangelists and temples were serving
as public school sites, examples also abound of Buddhist priests acting as public-school
educators and administrators. From 1888 to 1893, for instance, the city of Kyoto tasked the head
temple of the Ōtani denomination to manage the Kyoto Municipal Middle School due to
financial difficulties.
518
Kiyozawa Manshi was appointed principal of the school at just twenty-
six years old.
519
James Ketelaar has argued that Buddhists schools were savvy in their
anticipation of the direction of education and government policy. He asserts that reforms to
Buddhist education were “attempting to stay one step ahead of the government orders regarding
institutional participation in education” and at the same time “setting forth independent programs
designed to maintain their own educational autonomy.”
520
However, there was at least one
instance in which these two things— the desire to preserve institutional participation in public
education and to maintain educational autonomy—were opposed.

517
For more on the Normal School system and early forms of modern teacher training see Mizuhara 1990.
In English, see Duke 2009: 112-129.
518
See Hashimoto 2003: 22.
519
As a graduate of the University of Tokyo, Kiyozawa Manshi was in high demand.
520
Ketelaar 1993: 179.
137

Following the granting of provisional religious freedom,
521
the Ministry of Education’s
Directive Twelve of 1899 banned religious ceremonies or education at public or officially
recognized schools. Official recognition was desirable not only because it lent legitimacy at a
time when institutional education was in flux, it was also essential for governmental ‘perks’ such
as military service deferment for students and the ability to fulfill prerequisites for entrance into
a public higher educational institution. These perks helped schools to attract students. The
government’s goal in this directive was to eliminate the influence of religious groups, especially
Christians but also Buddhists, in education, and indeed this dealt a substantial blow to religious
schools.
For Christian schools, the dilemma was whether to abandon their religious mission and
risk losing financial backing from their respective churches, or to abandon official recognition
and thus become substantially less competitive in the educational marketplace.
522
Christian
schools such as Rikkyō University responded by agreeing to remove religious activities and
education from their schools but took advantage of the ambiguity of the policy by interpreting
the ban narrowly to mean no religious activities or education could take place inside the
classroom.
523
Instead, they conducted religious education and ceremonies in the residential
portions of campus and labelled such activities voluntary (though by all accounts, they were not
voluntary).

521
The exact language from the Article 28 of the Meiji Constitution was “Japanese subjects shall, within
limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and not antagonistic to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom of
religious belief.”
522
Hayashi 2013. Interestingly, in 1899, the same year of this directive, the Ministry of the Interior
formally recognized Christianity as a religion for the first time.
523
Ōe 2014.
138

Buddhist schools, on the other hand, did not see a way around this directive. Unlike the
Christian schools, which had both Christian and non-Christian students, the student body at
Buddhist schools at the time were comprised exclusively of student-priests. Therefore,
convincing the Ministry of Education that their curricula and activities were devoid of religious
education or ceremonies was implausible. In the Ōtani denomination, Kiyozawa Manshi believed
preserving the religious character and mission of Shinshū University was paramount, stating,
“This university must be the world’s first Buddhist university. [Such that] If those outside of
Japan, from Europe and the United States want to come to Japan to study Buddhism, they must
first come to Shinshū University.”
524
Though some student movements organized in favor of
compromising religious education and identity in exchange for accreditation, Buddhist leaders
like Kiyozawa maintained their insistence on the centrality of Buddhism.
525
Accordingly,
Buddhist sects reaffirmed that their institutions were intended solely for the purposes of training
clergy and were forced to operate without the coveted official recognition from the Ministry of
Education.
Ejima Naotoshi has called this a missed opportunity for Buddhist universities to broaden
their institutional mission to include the (non-priest) public as the Christians had done.
526

However, there are ways in which the loss of official recognition may have paradoxically
benefitted Buddhist universities. I contend that whereas prior to the directive, Buddhist educators
attempted to reclaim their dominance in the public sphere by scattering their efforts across all
strata of education, the limitations imposed by the directive allowed for a renewed focus on

524
この大学は、世界第一の仏教大学たらしめざるべあらず他日欧米より仏教を学ばんがために
日本に留学するものあらば、必ずまず真宗大学に来るべし。ODN 165.
525
ODN 161-165.
526
Ejima 2014.
139

higher education of the clergy. And indeed, course offerings expanded, and enrollment numbers
grew in the period following the directive.
Further, it is not the case that Buddhist schools abandoned their efforts to serve as
educators in the public sphere altogether. Rather, Buddhist organizations pivoted from the idea
of running public schools to training priests to be able to serve as licensed public educators. In
1900, the Meiji government issued the Teaching License Directive.
527
This law required all
public school teachers to be licensed by the Ministry of Education. This license could be earned
through graduating from a teacher training school, also known as a “Normal School,” or by
receiving certification, either through examination or other means. Accordingly, the same year
the licensing law was issued, the Jōdo Sect’s Higher Academy
528
opened a night school program
called the Tokyo Literature Academy
529
for priests to earn middle school teaching licenses in
Japanese and Chinese literature.
530
This new strategy, while perhaps beneficial to the larger
Buddhist mission, did not do much to bolster Buddhist educational institutions. The Tokyo
Bungaku-in was closed after only four years. The Taishō University sources cite only that its
unique mission was “premature.”
531

Just four years after Directive Twelve, the Meiji government issued the Professional
School Ordinance of 1903. This ordinance marked a dramatic policy shift. Whereas Directive
Number 12 was designed to limit the power of religious schools, the Professional School
Ordinance created a more inclusive framework for official recognition of private schools,

527
Kyōin menkyo-rei 教員免許令
528
Kōtōgaku-in 高等学院
529
Tokyo Bungaku-in 東京文学院
530
TDR, 40.
531
“ 時機尚早,” TDR, 40.
140

including religious schools. For Buddhist sects that had spent the last several decades
transforming their traditional seminaries into modern “proto”-universities, the Professional
School Ordinance provided a valuable opportunity that allowed Buddhist higher educational
institutions to be recognized in the public sphere for the first time. (Although, it would take until
the University Ordinance of 1918
532
for these schools to be given a pathway to full “university”
status.)
The Professional Schools Ordinance established a process for official government
recognition of both private and public professional schools and restored the ability for religious
schools to offer military deferment to its students. The level of oversight was quite granular—
mandating that a Minister of Education-approved administrator would determine required time
for graduation (minimum of 3 years), curricula and course content, as well as the addition of
preparatory courses, graduate courses, and special courses. The Minister of Education himself set
the requirements for instructors at all schools. For the state, the Professional School Ordinance
supplied a convenient mechanism to quickly boost the diversity and quantity of higher
educational offerings both to meet demand and to raise the profile of Japanese higher education
internationally. The Jōdo Sect’s Higher Academy was the first Buddhist sectarian school to gain
official recognition as a Professional School in 1903 (Inoue Enryō’s Testugakkan, or Philosophy
Academy
533
was non-sectarian but also gained recognition that year). Jōdo Sect’s Higher
Academy and the Tetsugakkan were followed by five Buddhist schools the following year: Sōtō
University, Shin Academy,
534
Tendai University, Nichiren University, and Shin University.

532
Daigaku-rei 大学令
533
哲学館大学
534
This was the school for the Nishi Hongan-ji. Not to be confused with Shin University, of the Higashi
Hongan-ji (Ōtani).
141

Combined student enrollment at these professional schools climbed from 160 in 1903, to over
1300 by the end of the Meiji period.
535

A notable addition to the Jōdo Sect’s Higher Academy’s structure was the addition of an
education major for priests desiring a career as schoolteachers. This supplanted the sect’s earlier
attempt at a teacher-training night school, the Tokyo Bungaku-in. Together with the other two
majors, Missionary Studies
536
and Sectarian Studies,
537
a three-tiered vision of Buddhism’s role
in the public sphere emerge. As schoolteachers, Buddhist priests could contribute to the moral
upbringing of Japan’s youth. As trained missionaries, priests could promote Buddhism to every
region of Japan, and in some cases abroad. And as scholars, priests could publish sectarian
research and participate in the emerging transnational global network of Buddhist academics, a
topic we will expand on in the next chapter.
Of the above roles envisioned for Buddhism in the public sphere, it is the role as scholar
that endured and flourished in the subsequent decades at Buddhist universities. This is perhaps
unsurprising. After all, universities as institutions were developed primarily to produce scholars
and scholarship, and it is only in the modern era that they have expanded their aims. But even as
the priorities shifted within the universities from creating roles for priests as public-school
educators and missionaries to a new focus on developing modern scholar-priests, these other
roles nevertheless reveal evolving notions of the priesthood. Following the blow dealt by
Directive Number 12 in 1899, Buddhist concentrated their efforts on advances in higher
education for clergy. This in turn meant Buddhist groups were better prepared for the
opportunity presented by the Professional School Ordinance of 1903. Wilensky argues that

535
日本帝国文部省年報 as cited in Ejima (2014).
536
dendōgaku 伝道学
537
senmongaku 専門学
142

licensing and certification are “weapons in the battle for professional authority.”
538
Likewise,
with each new education policy from the government came new constraints and opportunities for
Buddhist universities to participate in the public sphere. Each policy development led to critical
assessments by these universities about who they were for and what role they could serve in
modern Japan. These assessments spurred a re-imagining of the priesthood and new public
discourses about Buddhism for a modern era.

Conclusion
The Emerging Professional Scholar-Priest
A key attribute of the modern student-priest was that many would graduate and go on to
become professional scholar-priests. Importantly, these scholar-priests did not stay within the
confines of their sectarian institutions. Scholar-priests from Buddhist universities published
academic journals, participated in transnational academic exchanges, and contributed to the
development of Buddhist Studies in the imperial universities and at universities abroad. These
activities further contributed to a growing intellectual autonomy that was a necessary part of the
modernization of Buddhist education and the field of Buddhist Studies. As we examined, many
of the reformist students and faculty who participated in protests and collective action would go
on to hold leadership positions within these universities in subsequent decades and were
foundational in sketching the contours of this new kind of scholar-priest. Ketelaar has observed
the trajectory of Buddhists’ status in the Meiji era: from heretic to martyr. But this chapter
suggests a parallel trajectory taking place in the Buddhist universities.
539
By this I mean that the

538
Wilensky, 145.
539
See Ketelaar 1993.
143

status within their sects of figures such as Senshōin Kūkaku, Murakami Senshō, and Kiyozawa
Manshi fluctuate wildly throughout each of their lives: from rising stars to defrocked radicals,
from reinstated ideological and organizational leaders to targets of assassination. This is
important because it reveals the tenuous hold any single set of ideas had on a given moment in
this volatile period, an opportunity seized upon by reform-minded students as well as
conservative scholars at Buddhist universities. And unlike the narrative Ketelaar proposes, these
tensions were far from resolved by the end of the Meiji period.
To conclude our analysis, let us return to the professionalization literature. John W.
Meyer and Brian Rowan argue that in modern societies the upspring of many new organizations
in “highly institutionalized contexts” causes organizations, both old and new, to adopt the
“practices and procedures defined by prevailing rationalized concepts of organizational work and
institutionalized in society.”
540
Applied to this study, as Buddhist schools suddenly found
themselves in a new institutionalized context (a national education system) they adopted new
practices and procedures. Organizations like Buddhist schools are incentivized not by efficiency,
but because the dominant discourses within education function as powerful myths that carry with
them legitimacy and a better chance for organizational survival.
541
Furthermore, occupations
associated with these organizations adopt these myths ceremonially through rites such as
“licensing, certifying, and schooling.”
542
It is through this process that professions emerge.
Meyer and Rowan point out that these professions are “rationalized, being understood to control
impersonal techniques rather than moral mysteries."
543
The reality for the nascent modern

540
Meyer and Rowan 1991: 41.
541
Ibid.
542
Ibid, 43.
543
Ibid.
144

priesthood, however, was that they were expected to master both the “impersonal techniques” of
modern scholarship and the “moral mysteries” of Buddhist doctrine and practice. Further
complicating the matter, scholar-priests were in certain contexts expected to translate moral
mysteries into the language of the impersonal techniques, a crucial distinction from earlier
versions of the scholar-priest profession. Putting it in such terms not only enables us to see the
complex set of demands priests faced in this time period, but also a deeper understanding of what
was at stake for Buddhist schools in Meiji education policy: survival and legitimacy after the
devastating loss of hegemonic power in the Bakumatsu period. The previous chapter framed the
new curricular subjects and changes to the style of clerical education as the “seeds of change.”
Extending the metaphor here, I view the opportunity provided by these early professionalization
steps—made possible in part by the hard-fought battles of students’ collective action, and also in
part by Meiji educational policy developments—as the sprouting of a new scholar-priest, one we
will see more fully realized in the next chapter.

145

Chapter 4.
Branches and Blooms: Scholar-priests, Buddhist Scholarly Networks, and the Birth of
Modern Buddhist Studies in Japan
This study has argued the modern scholar-priest is the product of the curricular reforms,
protests, and structural changes that took place at Buddhist universities over the Meiji period.
How then can we characterize the modern scholar-priest? Beyond that, how did their scholarship
and interaction shape the field of Buddhist Studies? The primary goal of this chapter is to sketch
the contours and characteristics of the emerging modern professional scholar-priest and their
scholarship that Buddhist universities were central in producing. To do so, we examine the life
and works of three scholar-priests: Hara Tanzan (Sōtō Zen sect), Nanjō Bunyū (Jōdo Shin sect)
and Mochizuki Shinkō (Jōdo sect). From different major sects and with lives that spanned the
Meiji period, these individuals provide sectarian and generational cross-sections that enable us to
consider the diversity within this new category of professional.
Recent works on Buddhist modernization in Japan make frequent mention of Tanzan,
Nanjō, and Mochizuki. In most cases, however, they are not the focus of study. Instead, they are
mentioned only in connection to more prominent figures such as Murakami Senshō, D.T. Suzuki,
or Kiyozawa Manshi.
544
The biographies and works of Tanzan, Nanjō, and Mochizuki are
arguably more valuable than the figures above for what they can tell us about changes to the role
of scholar-priest and to the study of Buddhism over the course of the Meiji period. By analyzing
the shared qualities across the three case studies, we can begin to identify the emergence of a
distinctly modern scholar-priest. Buddhist universities, as essential nodes in both the production

544
The notable exceptions to this are articles by Furuta Shōkin (1980), Kimura Kiyotaka (2001), and
Yoshinaga Shin’ichi (2006) for works on Tanzan. For works on Mochizuki, there are short works by
Shibata Taisen (2014) and Daniel Gertz (2016).
146

of Buddhist scholars and their intellectual exchanges, supported multiple visions of the modern
priesthood. These visions represented diverse interests within the sect and responses to the
tumult of the Meiji era. Despite these differences, the scholar-priests of the modern era shared an
interest in rearticulating Buddhism in ways that addressed modernist critiques. Their work
included (1) engagement with Western methods and discourses, (2) conscious reconstruction of
the relationship between Japanese Buddhism and Buddhism in the rest of Asia, and (3) the
demonstration of Buddhism’s compatibility with modernity through strategic engagement with
modern institutions.

The Pioneer: Hara Tanzan
545

Tanzan’s Life and Career
Hara Tanzan was born Arai Ryōsaku
546
into a samurai family in Iwakitaira Domain
547
on
December 5, 1819. He was the eldest son of Arai Yūsuke,
548
a domain lord. When Ryōsaku was
around ten years old, he was sent to Edo to study Chinese literature. At age fifteen, he enrolled in
the country’s most prestigious school, the shogunate’s Shōheikō and studied Confucianism under

545
This biography of Hara was stitched together from several sources. A testament to the multitude of
spheres in which he circulated, Hara’s biography within existing Japanese and English scholarship frames
his biography in terms of his intellectual developments, his involvement with the Sōtō sect, or his role as
the first lecturer of Buddhist Studies at the University of Tokyo. However, these elements of Hara’s life
are rarely considered in relation to one another. In this section, I present a chronological biography that
demonstrates the interwoven nature of these aspects of Hara’s life and thought. Sources used include:
Tsunemitsu 1968, Furuta 1980, Kimura 2001, Yoshinaga 2006 and 2014, and Stein 2019.
546
良作新井
547
This the Tokugawa era name for the area covering Iwaki city in Fukushima prefecture.
548
新井勇輔 (dates unknown)
147

Uchiyama Seizō
549
along with classmates such as Rai Mikisaburō.
550
From 1840 to 1845, he
studied medicine at the private academy of Taki Genken/Motokita,
551
a renowned late-Edo
doctor who was a medical officer in the Shogunate Medical Bureau.
552

A few years later, Tanzan
553
took up a part time job as a lecturer on Confucian texts at the
Sōtō Zen institution, the Komagome Sendanrin, a Tokugawa-era forerunner to Komazawa
University. The Sendanrin had a reputation for having very earnest students who expected a lot
of their instructors. Thus, if a teacher could succeed in the Sendanrin, they were widely sought
after and held in high esteem.
554
While at the Sendanrin, the Zen monk Daichū Kyōsan
555
grew
tired of Tanzan painting Buddhism in a bad light during his Confucianism lectures and
challenged Tanzan to a debate. He attributed Tanzan’s anti-Buddhist stance to his ignorance
about Buddhism and proposed that loser of the debate would become the winner’s disciple.
556

The two men debated the relative merits of Buddhism and Confucianism for three days until
Tanzan finally conceded and became a monk, though he did not become Daichu’s disciple.
Instead, he practiced with various Buddhist teachers and ultimately travelled to Settsu
557
to study

549
内山清蔵 (dates unknown)
550
Mikisaburo 三樹三郎 (1825-1859) was the third son of famed Confucian scholar Rai Sanyō 頼山陽
(1781-1832). He was a strong advocate of the sonnō jōi (Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarian)
movement and was beheaded as part of the Ansei Purge (Ansei no taigoku 安政の大獄).
551
多紀元賢(1795-1857)
552
There is some disagreement in sources about Hara’s age when he began to study with Taki Genken. He
was either seventeen, or twenty-one (see Kimura, 533).
553
I am following the convention of most sources by referring to Hara Tanzan using his priestly name,
Tanzan, rather than his surname, Hara.
554
Tsunemitsu 1968: 104-5.
555
大中京璨 (dates unknown)
556
Tsunemitsu 1968: 105.
557
Settsu 摂津国 was a pre-Meiji province covering parts of Osaka and Hyōgō prefectures.
148

under the famous Sōtō monk, Fūgai Honkō
558
where Fūgai was living in poverty and seclusion.
Upon Fugai’s death in 1847, Tanzan continued to study with Fūgai’s other disciples such as
Sengai Ekidō.
559
They did so in Yamashiro Province, living as Fugai did, in extreme poverty and
seculsion.
Though the exact year is unclear, Tanzan travelled to Edo at the invitation of Daishū
Eisen,
560
but Eisen died before Tanzan arrived. Nevertheless, he received dharma transmission
and then travelled to Mount Hiei to study Tendai Buddhism. In 1856, Tanzan was appointed
head priest to fill a vacancy in Kyoto’s Shinshō-ji. As he began to become well-known within
Zen circles, he found himself in another pivotal debate, this time with the Dutch medicine
scholar Komori Sōji.
561
He challenged Tanzan to identify the physical location of the human
mind. Komori, a trained anatomist, pressed Tanzan on this issue and argued that because the
location is unknowable, all discussion of the mind as a spiritual entity is mere conjecture.
562

Tanzan for his part was unable to convince Komori of his theory that the mind resided in the
heart, and lost the debate. As a result, Tanzan came to study with the doctor of Dutch medicine
using texts like Udagawa Genshin’s An Outline Explanation of Western Medical Examples.
563

This marked the beginning of Tanzan’s experimentation and engagement with Western empirical

558
風外本高 1779-1847
559
栴崖奕堂 1805-1879
560
大秀英仙 (dates unknown)
561
小森宗二 1804-1862 Dutch medicine was the only Western medicine allowed by the Bakufu
government and it was taught at the Kyūridō medical school. Yoshinaga in Harding et al 2014: 79.
562
Tsunemitsu 1968: 106.
563
宇田川玄真 1769-1834. The Japanese title of the book is Seisetsu ihan teimō shakugi 西説醫範提綱
釋義. Yoshinaga Shin’ichi points out that Tanzan’s study of Dutch medicine was largely through
Japanese scholars of Dutch medicine who, by the late Edo period had developed their own interpretations
of the Dutch’s medical theories (Yoshinaga in Harding et al 2014:83).
149

scientific concepts and terms. He used these concepts as tools to position Buddhism as the
paradigmatic ‘modern’ religion, rooted in empiricism from its inception, a topic we will explore
in the next section.
Shinshō-ji, where Tanzan was serving as head priest was the prayer temple for Nijō
Nariyuki, Emperor Komei’s Chief Advisor.
564
Accordingly, Tanzan had many opportunities to
be near Nijō. One time, at Nijō's official residence they were debating current events, and Tanzan
made critical remarks about Nijō. Criticizing the Kanpaku was a grave offence at the time,
punishable by banishment or death. To avoid these fates, Tanzan’s close friend, an attendant to
Nijō interceded on his behalf to get him declared insane and Tanzan was sent to an asylum in the
Kita-Iwakura neighborhood of Kyoto. After calling on a legal representative in Edo, Tanzan was
able to be transferred to Edo, where he enjoyed complete freedom. While in Edo, he wrote a
poem
565
and sent it to the Kanpaku who, upon reading it, recognized Tanzan’s character and
pardoned him. In 1867, now a Kantō resident, Tanzan was appointed head priest of Chōtoku-in,
a temple in the Ibaraki Prefectural town of Yūki.
566

In 1872, Tanzan was appointed as a National Evangelist by the Ministry of Doctrine as
part of the Great Promulgation Campaign discussed in Chapter Two.
567
Just two years later,
disliked and targeted by members of the Sōtō sectarian leadership, however, Tanzan was
reported to the government for having neglected a publication notice intended for distribution to

564
二条斉敬 1816-1878. Nijō held the title of Kanpaku 関白 (En. Chief Advisor) from 1863-1866. He
was appointed Sesshō 摂政 (En. Regent) for Emperor Meiji in 1867.
565
覆乾坤蓋女媧笑、或山岳昇或泥沙、風随処随常態無、時甘霖起国家利
566
長徳院
567
Tanzan was given the rank of Daikōgi 大講義 , the eighth rank of fifteen ranked instructor levels
(Tsunemitsu 1968: 107).
150

the National Evangelists.
568
For this seemingly minor offence he received the harsh punishment
of being stripped of his clerical status and National Evangelist appointment, as well as a
monetary fine.
569
Facing an unexpected loss of status and income, Tanzan turned to
fortunetelling in Asakusa to make his living.
570

While on pilgrimage to Hachijisan in Owari (now Nagoya) in 1878, Tanzan would add
Daoist alchemical healing to his variegated collection of views and practices after encountering a
mountain hermit and receiving his teachings.
571
As a result, Tanzan formed the Buddhist
Immortal Society,
572
explaining that Buddhist teachings could liberate one from worldly desires
and the Daoist alchemical practices, senjutsu,
573
could cure all bodily illness. During this period,
he went by the name Kakusen.
574
He was displaced again, however, when a conman illicitly sold
the Buddhist Immortal Society’s land. In response to his outraged followers, he said “It is alright.
You say he took the land, but it is not as if the land has vanished to outside of Japan. Do not

568
Most sources do not mention the role of sectarian leadership or details of the violation but state that he
was found in violation of the Publication Ordinance shuppan jōrei 出版条例. This ordinance was issued
in 1869 and was an extension of the Tokugawa government’s strict regulation of publication activities. In
addition to establishing copyright laws, the 1869 law stated the publications could not be produced or sold
that were deemed a threat to law, order, or public morality. Accordingly, published materials required
pre-approval by the Ministry of Education until that responsibility was moved to the newly established
Home Ministry in 1873.
569
Tonemitsu 1968: 107-8.
570
Klautau, 2012.
571
Kimura 2001: 535.
572
Bussensha 仏仙社
573
仙術
574
覚仙
151

worry.”
575
With the loss of his group’s land, he returned to Asakusa once again as a fortune
teller.
In yet another turn of fate, Ōtani Kouson, 21
st
Abbot of Nishi Honganji, invited Tanzan to
direct the education at Tsukiji Honganji,
576
lecturing on Buddhist history to the upper classes.
577

From there, his reputation as a gifted lecturer grew and in 1879, when the University of Tokyo
established a lectureship in Buddhist scriptures within the Philosophy Department, Department
Superintendent Kato Hiroyuki conducted a search for the right instructor and decided to invite
Tanzan to take the position.
578
Tanzan accepted and thus became the first lecturer on Buddhism
at the University of Tokyo, holding the post for ten years. The year after his appointment, he was
reinstated as a priest and as a National Evangelist.
579
At the University of Tokyo, several of
Tanzan’s students became prominent Buddhist reformers of the Meiji period including,
Kiyozawa Manshi, Inoue Enryō, Inoue Tetsujirō, and Miyake Setsurei.
In 1885 he was the first Buddhist cleric to be selected as a member of the Tokyo
Academy,
580
a society of scholars modeled after the British Royal Society. Thereafter, Tanzan
established a Buddhist Private School (shijuku) through the Sōtō sect and was appointed

575
Tsunemitsu 1968: 108.
576
築地本願寺
577
Tsunemitsu 1968, 109.
578
Kato personally travelled to Asakusa Park to offer Tanzan the position, as task that required extensive
searching in the more remote parts of the park. Tanzan stoically accepted the invitation. Tsunemitsu
writes that this story of the Asakusa fortune teller becoming a university professor circulated widely at the
time (109).
579
Tanzan was granted a higher rank this time within the National Evangelist system, to Shōkyōsei 少教
正, the tenth of fifteen levels.
580
Tokyo Gakushi Kaiin 東京学士会院, known today as the Japan Academy (Nihon Gakushi-in 日本学
士院).
152

temporary instructor at the Sōtō sect Daigakurin in 1889. He officially became an instructor in
1891. On July 27, 1892, at the age of 73, Tanzan sent out dozens of postcards announcing his
death, writing, “My death is imminent. This is my final notice.”
581

Tanzan’s Methods and Approach to Buddhist Studies
Tanzan’s eclectic biography informed the type of scholar he was and his approach to the
study of Buddhism. Like earlier generations of Buddhist pioneers and innovators, he was
particularly savvy in mapping Buddhist ideas onto intellectual trends of his day. In his case,
these trends were philosophy and scientific empiricism. Importantly, Tanzan was the first
Japanese Buddhist scholar to present Buddhism as a philosophy, specifically a philosophy of the
mind and Indian philosophy.
582
These frames served as tools for Tanzan to draw comparisons
with Western philosophy and, at the same time, to develop critiques of Western philosophy. As
discussed in Chapter 2 on curriculum, Western philosophy was a widely popular subject in Meiji
higher education, and Tanzan made use of its popularity to make a case for Buddhist philosophy.
One of Tanzan’s first students at the University of Tokyo, Inoue Tetsujirō, who would become a
prominent philosopher in his own right and a vocal advocate for the Japanese empire, recalled in
his memoir the impact of Tanzan’s lectures:
In attending these lectures on Buddhist scriptures as given by Tanzan Hara, I finally
understood the exquisite flavor of the philosophy found in Mahāyāna Buddhism.
Henceforth, I was ever more bound to Buddhism. To this day I study the philosophy of
Mahāyāna Buddhism and harbor a great interest in this topic.
583

581
「拙者僕即刻臨終仕候此段御通知に及び候也」(Tsunemitsu 1968: 110).
582
Inoue 2014: 276.
583
Inoue Tetsujirō quoted in Inoue Katsuhito 2014, 277.
153

Tanzan’s lectured on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment and the Treatise on the Hundred
Dharmas, but his instruction on The Awakening of Faith had the largest impact on the emerging
Buddhist Studies field.
584
His lectures on the Awakening of Mahayana Faith connected the
Buddhist idea of true thusness, or shinnyo,
585
with Kantian and Hegelian theories on the nature of
consciousness and the mind/body distinction.
586
His frequent use of the Awakening of Mahāyāna
Faith set off a boom in renewed scholarly interest in the text, the ideas from which are credited
with producing some of the earliest Buddhist contributions in the development of a distinctly
Japanese philosophy. Indeed, in his discussion of the emergence of the ‘religion’ and
‘philosophy’ as distinct categories in the Meiji era, G. Clinton Godart writes that the
reinterpretation and rearticulation of Buddhism as a philosophy that was not only indigenous to
Asia but also superior to Western philosophy was a matter of nationalist aims and “cultural
prestige.”
587

Crucial to Tanzan’s approach was the restoration of Śākyamuni’s Buddhism, or ‘original
Buddhism’
588
by eliminating superstitious practices and belief-based elements.
589
Next, he
argued for a revitalization of meditation practices, the experience of which, according to Tanzan,
provided “rational proof on an individual level.”
590
This rational proof represented the

584
Inoue 2014: 277.
585
真如
586
Shimizu 1989. It is important to note that while Tanzan was lecturing on Buddhism and drawing
comparisons to Western philosophy, the American scholar Ernest Fenollosa was also at the University of
Tokyo beginning in 1877, lecturing on Western philosophy.
587
Godart, 80.
588
genshi Bukkyō 原始仏教
589
Yoshinaga 2006: 6-7.
590
Tanzan cited in Klautau 2012: 73.
154

superiority of Buddhism over Christianity that he argued relies on belief alone. To illustrate this,
let us look at an example of Tanzan’s method in his writings.
Tanzan placed great emphasis on the body as central site of illness and suffering, as well
as the vehicle for liberation. His views married his Buddhist training with his exposure to Daoist
alchemical practices; and these views further mingled with his education in Sino-Japanese
medicine and Japanese understandings of European medical texts. Two decades before he was
lecturing at the University of Tokyo, he studied anatomy with the aim of developing
experimental and experiential methods that could demonstrate Buddhism’s practical nature and
contend with modern science. Ten years into this process he explicates his intentions in a piece
titled “On the Difference Between the Brain and the Spinal Cord”:
In general, Western anatomical theory is based on two thousand years of experimental
research, so if I want to criticize it solely based on Buddhist principles of inner
observation, people will not believe me. Thus, I [also] want to argue from my own
experiments, intimate evidence, and numerous experiences.
591

In a later section of the same piece, he lays out the results of his meditation techniques and
identifies them as evidence of his theory for achieving ideal physical and mental health. The
process involved extremely advanced meditation practices that could prevent the flow of an
unenlightened physical fluid in the body he called dana
592
from clouding the body’s pure
enlightenment, stored as “brain ki.”
593
Tanzan claimed to have accomplished enlightenment and
optimal health in this manner, utilizing his Zen training and his medical studies to do so.

591
Tanzan, 1896 in Stein 2019.
592
陀那
593
Yoshinaga 2006 and Stein 2020. As Stein points out, the terms enlightenment 覚 and unenlightenment
不覚 figure prominently in The Awakening of Faith (Stein 2020: 43, fn. 3)
155

He described this method as “Buddhist experiential studies,” Bukkyō jikken gaku.
594

Sueki Fumihiko and Jeffrey Schroeder have both highlighted that what Tanzan meant by
“jikken” and how it was understood by his audiences is uncertain because of the language shifts
taking place in the early Meiji period.
595
Schroeder points out that the words keiken
596
and
taiken,
597
which are understood today as “experience,” were not in Tanzan’s time period easily
distinguished from jikken, a term understood today as “experiment.”
598
Schroeder argues that
while these terms lacked distinction, Tanzan was not using “jikken” in the sense of a scientific
“experiment,” but rather he was using personal “experiences” as evidence.
599
Sueki asserts that
regardless of how Tanzan’s audience interpreted his use of “jikken,” Tanzan likely benefited
from this linguistic ambiguity because of jikken’s strong association with Western empiricism
and science. Sueki goes so far as to argue Tanzan’s lectureship at the University of Tokyo and
his acceptance to the Japan Academy were direct results of his deployment of jikken.
600

Schroeder and Sueki’s focus on semantics in this case are important but fail to recognize the
significance of Tanzan’s experiences as experiments. Even if seen as ‘unscientific’ in the modern
sense, Tanzan’s innovation was couching Buddhist experience, especially in his case as a Sōtō
priest, meditation experience, in language used by science and deemed “practical” by
modernizers.

594
仏教実験学
595
See Sueki 2005: 10 and Schroeder 2015: 55-6.
596
経験
597
体験
598
Schroeder draws from the Kokugo Daijiten entry for jikken 実験 to make this point (Schroeder 2015:
55).
599
Schroeder 2015: 55.
600
Sueki 2005:10.
156

Further, Tanzan asserted the complementarity of Buddhism and science. He concludes
“On the Difference Between the Brain and the Spinal Cord” with this musing:
In general, Buddha’s doctrine of consciousness is pure and subtle, but its lack of a
detailed explanation of this part [described in this essay] is still a defect. [On the other
hand,] the experiments of Western science misunderstand the fundamentals of
consciousness. (To provide details [about consciousness, science has] missed cultivation-
realization and mistaken its branches for its roots. This is why it is unaware of the reality
of enlightenment and unenlightenment.).
601

In other words, for Tanzan, the fields of religion and science were not mutually exclusive,
making his work relevant as one of the earliest iterations of Buddhist modernism. David
McMahon describes Buddhist modernism’s relationship with science as “ambivalent,” at once
aligning with science’s basic claims of empiricism while also working as a corrective to
science.
602
As Tanzan wrote in a piece toward the end of his life: “For me, learning comes from
the vast expansiveness of religion and the close familiarity of science, so we can call it a calico
cat.”
603
Tanzan’s experimental approaches sought to advance methods in Buddhist Studies for
the benefit of Buddhism, both its internal functioning and its external reputation. Although many
of Tanzan’s experimental ideas failed to gain traction in the nascent Buddhist Studies field, his
understanding of religious experience as an empirical, scholarly method continued to flourish
and develop in future generations of Buddhist scholars including Kiyozawa Manshi, Nishida

601
Tanzan 1869, translated by Stein 2020.
602
McMahon 2008: 11.
603
予が学問は此廣漠遠大の宗教と、親近切實の科学と両方より来ること故丁度三毛猫とも云う
べき者なり Tanzan, Dōshoku nigen ron 動植二元論 (1888) cited in Furuta 1980: 146.
157

Kitarō, and D.T. Suzuki.
604
The successful proliferation of this approach was at least partially a
result of Tanzan’s reinterpretation of Buddhism into scientific and philosophical parlance. At the
same time, a different strand of Buddhist scholarship was gaining steam that used historical and
textual inquiry, rather than experience, as a form of empiricism. This approach was one taken by
our next two scholars, Nanjō Bunyū and Mochizuki Shinkō.

The Polymath: Nanjō Bunyū
Nanjō’s Life and Career
605

Nanjō Bunyū’s was born Kakumaru
606
on July 1, 1849. His father was the abbot of Sei-
unji
607
temple of the Jōdo Shin sect’s Ōtani denomination in the town of Ōgaki, Gifu prefecture.
As the third son, he was not groomed to take over the family temple but instead excelled in his
education of classical Chinese texts under the tutelage of scholar Hishida Kaiō.
608
Nanjō took
well to academics even as a young boy and this at times caused tension with his second eldest

604
Schroeder argues that the proliferation of the discourse of “religious experience” was not directly
attributable to Tanzan, but rather a case of “convergent evolution” (Schroeder 2015: 56). Indeed, it is
difficult to discern the extent of Tanzan’s influence in the case of each scholar but Tanzan is nevertheless
significant as one the earliest, if not the earliest examples of Buddhist scholars employing religious
experiential discourse as an explicit appeal to modern scientific empiricism.
605
Nanjō kept diaries throughout his life, but they were lost in the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923.
Subsequently, he wrote a memoir, Record of Reminiscences (Kaikyūroku 懐旧録), from which much of
the biographical data in this section is derived. See also Zumoto 2004.
606
格丸 Bunyū was his Buddhist initiate name. According to shogunate policy, commoners and temple
families were not permitted family names. Nanjō’s family name was registered in 1872 when the Meiji
government overturned that policy.
607
誓運寺
608
菱田海鷗 (1836-1895)
158

brother, who also studied under Hishida.
609
Nanjō was not only bookish but also a skilled orator;
he began as a travelling assistant preacher at just sixteen. This dual reputation as both a gifted
scholar and preacher followed him throughout his life, as events in Nanjō’s life often required
him to switch between these roles.
After being drafted in a briefly revived reserve of soldier monks
610
for the Higashi
Honganji from 1867 to 1868, Nanjō resumed his education, this time at the Ōtani denomination’s
Takakura Academy and Institute for the Protection of the Dharma.
611
For reasons unknown he
returned home to Ōgaki after just over a year of studies in Kyoto.
612
During his time at home
Nanjō tutored local children in Chinese texts and assisted his father with the family temple. By
1872, Nanjō returned to Kyoto for formal initiation into the priesthood and to pursue more
studies at the Gohōjō. Over the next four years, Nanjō’s reputation as a skilled scholar and
preacher continued to grow. He was given appointments at the Ōtani denominational
headquarters in Kyoto and was in high demand as a preacher and lecturer. During this time

609
Nanjō 1927: 29-30.
610
僧兵 Nanjō explains that although he was required to train and travel as a soldier, he was never
mobilized to fight. He also notes that although fighting never materialized in his regiment, the Higashi
Honganji was prepared to defend the shogunate over the pro-imperial forces (Nanjō 1927: 3-11). For
more on this tradition of warrior monks in Japanese Buddhism, see Adolphson 2007.
611
Takakura Gakuryō 高倉学寮 and Gohōjō 護法場. See Chapters 2 and 3 for more about these
institutions, including some of Nanjō’s impression of the education there. It was at the Takakura
Academy that he met an instructor, the abbot of Okunenji Temple ( 憶念寺) in Echizen. Okunenji was
more financially prosperous than Nanjō’s family temple and housed a large library of rare Buddhist and
Confucian works (Zumoto 2004: 123). The abbot, hoping to groom Nanjō as his successor, adopted him
in 1871. By then Nanjō was in his early twenties, but he remained a dutiful son to both his birth and
adopted parents until their deaths.
612
Zumoto speculates on the reasons for his relatively short time studying in Kyoto, citing the cost of
tuition that, though modest, were burdensome on Nanjō’s poor family, or perhaps Nanjō decided to study
independently from home (Zumoto 2004: 122).
159

Nanjō, like Hara Tanzan, also served as a National Evangelist at the Great Teaching Institute
discussed in Chapter 2.
In 1875, the Ōtani denomination tasked the twenty-seven-year-old Nanjō along with
twenty-four-year-old Kasahara Kenju
613
to study Sanskrit in Europe. The pair travelled by
French mail boat out of Yokohama and, after three months at sea and a ten-day stop in Paris, the
young men arrived in England in August 1876, where Nanjō would spend most of the next eight
years. He spent his first two years in London learning English as a conduit to studying Sanskrit.
Nanjō’s first Sanskrit instructor was Arthur MacDonnell,
614
a student of Professor F. Max
Müller’s.
615
One year later, in 1880, Müller accepted Nanjō as a student, and thus began a pivotal
and enduring working relationship between them. Under Müller, Nanjō studied and made copies
of Sanskrit sutras, was introduced to Europe’s most prominent Orientalist scholars, and gained
access to Buddhist textual repositories such as the London and Paris Libraries.
616

While he continued his studies, Nanjō devoted much of the next three years to translation,
editing, and organizational projects. He worked with Müller on the editing and translation of the
Sutra of Immeasurable Life,
617
the Amida Sutra,
618
and the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom

613
笠原研寿 (1852-1883)
614
Arthur A. MacDonnell (1854-1930) was to become a prolific Sanskritist in his own right, eventually
appointed to the prestigious post of the University of Oxford’s Boden Professor of Sanskrit in 1899.
615
Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900) was a philologist and pioneering religious studies scholar. He was
the University of Oxford’s first Professor of Comparative Philology and was one of Europe’s leading
Sanskritists. See Davis and Nicholls 2017.
616
Nanjō 1927: 136-148.
617
Skt. Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra; Jp. Muryōjukyō 無量壽經 (T 360). Also known as the “Larger
Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra.”
618
Skt. Amitābhasūtra; Jp. Amidakyō 阿彌陀經 (T 366). Also known as the “Smaller
Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra.”
160

Sutra and the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra.
619
These works were first published in
Müller’s Buddhist Texts from Japan (1881).
620
Also during this time, Nanjō organized the
English catalog of the Chinese Tripiṭaka manuscripts found in the library of London’s Indian
Ministry. This work culminated in the catalog’s publication
621
in 1883. For this contribution,
Oxford University conferred upon Nanjō a Master of Arts degree in 1884. Shortly thereafter,
Nanjō was forced to return to Japan due to his birth father’s death and his adopted mother’s
grave illness.
Upon his return, Nanjō was highly sought after for his Sanskrit expertise from both
secular and sectarian institutions and audiences alike. In 1885, the University of Tokyo’s
Literature Department hired Nanjō as a lecturer in Sanskrit and Buddhist texts. Consistent with
his lifelong pattern, Nanjō split his time between his duties at the secular University of Tokyo
and accepting invitations to speak at temples around Japan. In 1887, Nanjō, who had long hoped
to visit India, was finally able to make that trip, visiting sacred Buddhist sites. He returned home
via China, where he was able to make a discovery of lost wood blocks of the Gazetteer of Mt.
Tiantai
622
at the Mt. Tiantai monastery.
623
All told, Nanjō was in India and China for about six
weeks.

619
Skt. Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya Sutra; Jp. Hannya haramitta shingyō 般若波羅蜜多心經 (T 220). Also
known as the Heart Sutra.
620
Nanjō was given credit as editor in the 1881 publication, but later these works were incorporated into
Müller’s Sacred Books of the East (Book 49, 1894) and Nanjō’s editing credit is no included.
621
The publication was titled Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of Buddhist Tripiṭaka.
622
Tiantai shanzhi 天台山志 (c.1330).
623
Nanjō 1927: 242. Nanjō made one additional overseas trip in 1898 to Thailand. He was there with
representatives throughout Buddhist Asia to receive Buddha relics from the Thai monarch (Nanjō 1927:
258-265).
161

Nanjō’s scholarly contributions were recognized by the Ministry of Education in 1888
when he was awarded a doctoral degree, and again in 1906 when he was selected as a member of
the Imperial Academy, the same prestigious organization to which Hara Tanzan was named as
the first Buddhist inductee two decades earlier.
624
Within his denomination, Nanjō succeeded
Kiyozawa Manshi as the third president of Shinshū University from 1903 to 1911. He served as
president once again from 1914 to 1923 of the renamed Shinshū Ōtani University.
625
He died a
few years later on November 9, 1927 at the age of 78.

Nanjō’s Methods and Approach to Buddhist Studies
There are two categories under which we can understand Nanjō’s contributions to the
field of Buddhist Studies and to the modern scholar-priesthood. The first is his focus on the
philological approach to Buddhist texts. The second is his commitment to establishing and
participating in scholarly networks and exchange.
Paride Stortini has recently written about what he calls Nanjō’s “Sanskritization” of
Buddhist Studies in Japan.
626
Stortini highlights the ways Nanjō used his expertise in kanbun, or
Sino-Japanese, to intervene on the development of Buddhist Studies on both the European and
Asian continents. On the European side, Nanjō and his colleague Kasahara were instrumental in
helping Max Müller decipher Buddhist Sanskrit by comparing the Sanskrit texts to Chinese

624
In 1906, the same year Nanjō was named a member, the Tokyo Academy to which Tanzan was
inducted was reorganized and renamed the Imperial Academy (Teikoku Gakushi-in 帝国学士院). Today
it is known as the Japan Academy.
625
This became Ōtani University in 1922. See Appendix 1 for a complete list of name changes within the
Ōtani denomination’s higher educational institutions.
626
Stortini 2020.
162

translations.
627
Nanjō also procured Sanskrit texts from Japanese temple holdings for Müller and
likewise, brought back to Japan hand-copied Sanskrit Buddhist manuscripts from libraries in
Europe.
His Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of Buddhist Tripiṭaka, became an indispensable
reference tool for Buddhist Studies scholars in Japan and Europe. Famed early Buddhist Studies
scholar and a later student of Müller’s, Takakusu Junjirō, explained that Nanjō’s name became
synonymous with the Chinese Tripiṭaka and that “no Orientalist is without this invaluable book
in his library.”
628
The value of this work, as argued by Stortini, was found in Nanjō’s indices that
listed Sanskrit sutras with their Chinese translation and which attempted to provide chronological
context for the previously undated Sanskrit texts.
629
Nanjō’s catalogue would be superseded in
1978 by a new catalogue from the Hōbōgirin Institute that corrected numerous Chinese texts that
had been given Sanskrit titles for which Sanskrit texts are not known to have existed.
630

As Michael Pye has pointed out, Nanjō’s attempt to link all Chinese texts back to
Sanskrit is reflective of the “historico-critical” European ethos at the time that fixated on
philological and textual origins.
631
This interest in philological forensics as a way to access a
given culture’s or religion’s ‘pure’ origins, discussed in Chapter 1 and also by Pye, was not an
exclusively Western trend. It was present in the Nativist and certain Buddhist fundamentalist
scholarship of the Tokugawa period. In European universities in the latter half of the nineteenth
century, philology was an important tool in the development of the scientific study of religion as

627
Ibid: 141-142.
628
Takakusu in Zumoto 2004.
629
Stortini 2020: 142.
630
Pye 2003: 16.
631
Pye 2003: 16.
163

an ‘objective’ and systematic approach to religious texts. Nanjō’s expertise in classical Chinese,
as well as the exposure he would have received at the Gohōjō to Nativist arguments, armed him
with this kind of methodological training from both Japan and Europe. Nanjō’s leveraged this
training, Stortini argues, to effectively link “the particularity of Japanese Buddhism to the
universal model of Buddhism, which was defined in Western Buddhist Studies as essentially
written in Sanskrit.”
632

Studying abroad and international scholarly collaboration was by no means the norm for
the majority of modern scholar-priests, including the other two scholars profiled in this chapter.
Nor is it the standard for scholar-priests today. Perhaps because of this exceptionality, Nanjō’s
scholarly impact was amplified by his cosmopolitan experiences. Further, the texts, methods, and
access to scholarly networks that Nanjō collected and developed during his career had a ripple
effect on subsequent generations of Japanese scholar-priests. International scholarly networks
were crucial to Nanjō’s philological work. Max Müller is most often mentioned in discussions of
this aspect of Nanjō’s career, and the value of Nanjō’s and Müller’s relationship for both men
and for subsequent Japanese scholars that succeeded Nanjō as students of Müller, cannot be
overstated. But Nanjō also forged relationships with other international scholars from both Asia
and the West that reveal a broader network of scholarly collaboration than is often lost when the
focus is solely on his work with Müller. Below we will look at just two examples.
On June 30, 1881, while in London, Nanjō met Yang Wenhui,
633
a prominent lay
Buddhist reformer from China who was then serving as a counselor to the Chinese
ambassador.
634
Scholar Jidong Chen argues that “the meeting between Yang and Nanjō was the

632
Stortini 2020: 141.
633
楊文曾 (1837-1911)
634
For more on Yang, see Lai 2013, Hammerstrom 2015, and Chen 2017.
164

most important event among the contacts between Chinese and Japanese Buddhism in the
modern period” and that “it was from here that Buddhist studies in modern East Asia began.”
635

Nanjō’s knowledge of both classical Chinese and Sanskrit demonstrated an important
methodological bridge between what Chen calls the “unchallenged monopoly of traditional East
Asian Buddhist scholarship” and the new philological methods being developed in the West, a
model Yang hoped to emulate in China.
636
The two men spent the next three decades cultivating
a relationship, sharing ideas with one another on Buddhist education and modernization in China
and Japan, and exchanging Buddhist texts missing from their respective countries.
637

Even when Nanjō’s participation in scholarly networks were less visible, he remained
nevertheless engaged in them. As Takakusu Junjirō observed, upon returning from Oxford,
Nanjō appeared immersed in preaching and proselytization activities with his sect, but
unbeknownst to most, he was also working with a Dutch Orientalist scholar, Hendrik Kern
638
on
the first English translation of the Lotus Sutra, published by the Imperial Russian Academy.
639

Finally, Nanjō’s impact in cultivating a network of scholarly relationships can also be seen in the
work of his students, such as Izumi Hokei,
640
who assisted Nanjō in his final publication, a

635
Chen 2017: 13. It is notable that the relationship between Nanjō and Yang is well documented among
scholars working on Buddhist modernization in China, but not so among scholars focusing on Japanese
Buddhism’s modernization.
636
Chen 2017: 14.
637
Lai 2013: 94-95.
638
Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern (1833-1917) usually published under the name “Hendrik Kern” or “H.
Kern.”
639
Takakusu in Zumoto 2004: 135. This translation was published in 1884.
640
泉芳璟 (1884-1947)
165

translation of the Laṅkāvatāra Sutra.
641
Izumi went on to be a prolific publisher of original
scholarship and translations of Buddhist texts in his own right.
Revisiting the common elements found in the emerging class of modern scholar-priests,
all three are visible in Nanjō’s work. In his training at the Oxford, he was trained in Western
methods and discourses and used his unique position as a scholar of multiple Buddhist languages
to contribute to a conscious reconstruction of the relationship between Japanese Buddhism and
Buddhism in the rest of Asia. And by participating in and contributing to a number of modern
institutions in both Europe and Japan, Nanjō’s career served to demonstrate Buddhism’s
compatibility with modernity. In this chapter, I have characterized Nanjō as “the polymath,” not
only because of his extensive education, but because of the ways he deployed that knowledge: as
a student, a lecturer, a researcher, a preacher, and a progenitor of enduring scholarly networks.
Importantly, each of these roles came to play important functions in the modern scholar-priest, a
figure we will see developing further in our final scholar, Mochizuki Shinkō.

The Paragon: Mochizuki Shinkō
Mochizuki’s Life and Career
Mochizuki Shinkō was born Matsuhara Shōjiro
642
on October 28, 1869 in the Imadategun
area of Fukui. He was the fifth son of Matsuhara Shinpei
643
and, like many younger sons in large
families, joined the priesthood at the age of twelve. At seventeen, he began his studies at the

641
Ryōgakyō 楞伽經 (T 670)
642
松原勝治郎
643
松原新兵衛 (dates unknown)
166

Jōdo Sect Daigakurin
644
in Kyoto and two years later moved to Tokyo to enroll in the Jōdo Sect
Main School.
645
In school, a requirement to select a specialization in addition to sectarian studies
led Mochizuki to choose to study the Kusha,
646
or Abhidharma, school. He changed his surname
to Mochizuki at the age of twenty-four when he was adopted by Mochizuki Ujō,
647
the head
priest of Fujinotera
648
in Kobe so that he would eventually take over the temple from Ujō. As a
recent graduate of the Jōdo Sect Main School in January of 1896, Mochizuki was dispatched
along with a group of other recent Main School graduates to study at various educational
institutions outside the Jōdo sect. Mochizuki was assigned to go to Mt. Hiei to study Tendai
Buddhism.
Following his studies on Mt. Hiei, Mochizuki transitioned from student to teacher. In
1899, at age thirty, Mochizuki began to teach at the Jōdo Sect Upper Academy.
649
He was made
the Head of Professional Studies in 1904. The Jōdo Sect Upper Academy was overhauled to
became Shūkyō University in 1908, and by 1914, Mochizuki was wearing many hats as
professor, Department Head, Head of the Library, and Head of the Research Center. He taught
subjects in both Pure Land history and Chinese Buddhist history. During this time Mochizuki
was also part of a committee of Buddhist scholar-priest representatives from the Pure Land,
Rinzai Zen, Sōtō Zen, Nichiren, Shingon (Kogi and Shingi denominations), and Tendai sects to

644
Jōdoshū Daigakurin 浄土宗大学林. This was the predecessor to Bukkyō University (Bukkyō Daigaku
仏教大学).
645
Jōdoshū Honkō 浄土宗本校. This was one of the predecessors to Taishō University.
646
倶舎
647
望月有城
648
藤之寺
649
Jōdoshū Kōtōgaku-in 浄土宗高等学院. This would become Shūkyō University (Shūkyō Daigaku 宗
教大学) in 1908, and Mochizuki was made full Professor at that time.
167

form an pan-sectarian Buddhist university.
650
Ultimately, the Zen and Nichiren sects sought
accreditation for their own institutions and left the pan-sectarian university project. The
remaining Pure Land, Shingon, and Tendai sects combined efforts to establish a university,
which was formally recognized as Taishō University by the Ministry of Education in 1926. On
April 17, 1930, Mochizuki was made the third President of Taishō University.
Mochizuki’s prolific publishing career began when he was still a student, forming a
group with other young Jōdo sect scholars called the Essence of the Sect Society
651
in 1895. This
society published the latest in Jōdo sectarian scholarship and aimed to reconcile traditional
sectarian teachings with cutting edge approaches to the study of religion.
652
In 1906 he worked
with Kuroda Shinto
653
to publish the Collected Works of Hōnen, on the founder of Jōdo sect in
Japan. It was also at this time that he began to work on the massive project for which he is best
known, Bukkyō Daijiten, or The Comprehensive Dictionary of Buddhism.
654
In 1912, he joined
Nanjō Bunyū, Takakusu Junjirō, and art historian Omura Seigai to form the Society for the
Publication of Buddhist Texts.
655
Led by Nanjō, this group’s main focus was to publish a
comprehensive volume of Japanese Buddhist texts, known as the Dainihon Bukkyō Zensho.
656

The project took ten years, publishing 953 works in 150 volumes, with an additional ten volumes

650
TDR, 273.
651
Shūsuisha 宗粋社
652
See Getz 2016:5 and Ikeda 1994: 267-305.
653
黒田真洞 (1855-1916) 。Kuroda was a Jōdo sect priest and President of Shūkyō University ( 宗教大
学), a predecessor to Taishō University, from 1907-1911.
654
仏教大辞典 A later edition of the Daijiten was published in 1954. It expanded the work to ten
volumes and was renamed the Mochizuki Bukkyō Daijiten.
655
Bussho Kankōkai 佛書刊行会
656
大日本佛教全書 From Nanjō’s memoir, we know of at least invited Nanjō Bunyū to give a talk on
Buddhism at a meeting of the Fukui Prefectural Association of Tokyo.
168

of images and indexes. Amidst his work on these collaborative projects, Mochizuki published his
dissertation on the history of Pure Land Buddhism and was awarded a doctorate from Tokyo
Imperial University in 1924. He also contributed to smaller sectarian publications beyond his
own sect, such as the Tendai’s Sange School Bulletin.
657

In the final ten years of his life, Mochizuki assumed larger leadership roles within the
sect. In 1938, Mochizuki became the Head Priest Konkai Kōmyōji.
658
In 1945, he was made the
Head of the Jōdo Sect and Chief Priest of Chion'in.
659
He died three years later, on July 13, 1948.

Mochizuki’s Methods and Approach to Buddhist Studies
A brief review of Mochizuki’s numerous nodes of scholarly exchange, then, includes
Tokyo Imperial University, Mount Hiei, secular local associations, school-based publications,
and larger trans-sectarian
660
publication projects. Floating in and out of secular and sectarian
contexts, Mochizuki’s work centered on both the collection of Buddhist texts and the explication
of those texts. His openness to work with scholars beyond sectarian lines was in part the product

657
TDR, 135. The Sange School Bulletin ( 山家学報) was published until 1925 with twenty-one issues in
total. This academic bulletin described research on general Buddhist Studies as well as Tendai Studies in
China and Japan.
658
金戒光明寺 Founded in 1175. This is one of the Jōdo sect’s Main Head Temples.
659
知恩院 Founded in 1234. This is the headquarters of the Jōdo sect.
660
Terminology can be a challenge when discussing the various movements that transcended sectarian
divisions. I borrow from John Lobreglio’s translation of tsūbukkyō 通仏教 as “transdenominational
Buddhism,” and “pan-denominational” as a translation for both zenshū 全宗 and shoshū 諸宗 (See
Lobreglio 2005: 4-53 for an in-depth discussion of these and related terms). I have modified both slightly
to “trans-sectarian Buddhism” and “pan-sectarian Buddhism” to comport with my use of “sect” as the
translation for shū 宗. The primary distinction for our purposes is that trans-sectarian denotes a collapse
of sectarian difference, whereas pan-sectarian denotes a collective effort among Buddhist sects while
maintaining sectarian distinction.
169

of his coming of age in the wake of various pan-sectarian movements. First among these was the
League of United Buddhist Sects,
661
a pan-sectarian organization led by Fukuda Gyōkai,
662
a
senior priest in the Jōdo sect. Daniel Getz has argued that Fukuda set an “ecumenical tone”
within the Jōdo sect that Mochizuki and others followed.
663
Later in the Meiji period, movements
like New Buddhism
664
formed among early university-educated Buddhists such as Nakanishi
Ushirō
665
and Sakaino Kōyō.
666
These movement produced a plethora of trans-sectarian Buddhist
periodicals and organizations to which Mochizuki would have been exposed.
667
As the events in
the previous chapters have demonstrated, however, conservatives often feared these kinds of
activities would cause a loss of sectarian identity and tradition. Those fears were in part validated
by movements like United Buddhism
668
that sought to dissolve sectarian divisions in favor of a
single Buddhism. In contrast, by conducting research on Pure Land Buddhism’s origins in China
using new scholarly methods, Mochizuki’s work transcended the confines of sectarian
scholarship while also serving to modernize Jōdo sectarian scholarship. The positive reception of

661
諸宗同徳会盟 Shoshū Dōtoku Kaimei. This group began in 1868 and was active for approximately
five years.
662
福田行誡 (1806-1888)
663
Getz 2016: 7. Fukuda Gyōkai was also well known for his advocacy of monastic precept revival
(kairitsu fukkō undō 戒律復興運動). Orion Klautau has persuasively argued that the development of
what he calls a “supra-sectarian [Buddhist] identity” was inextricably linked to the need to reform the
current state of Buddhism was degenerate and in need of reform; for Fukuda that meant strict adherence
to the precepts for all Buddhist clerics (See Klautau 2008: 279-80).
664
新仏教 Shin Bukkyō
665
中西午郎 (1859-1930)
666
境野黄洋 (1871-1933)
667
For more on New Buddhism see Ōtani 2014.
668
通仏教 Tsū Bukkyō
170

his work among both secular and sectarian scholars demonstrated that scholar-priests could use
trans-sectarian approaches and advance sectarian interests at the same time.
Reflecting his ties within the Buddhist intellectual network, Mochizuki’s publications can
be divided into two categories: sectarian and trans-sectarian. Mochizuki’s original sectarian
works, starting with Research on Pure Land Doctrine
669
in 1914 and concluding with A
Doctrinal History of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism
670
in 1942, consistently employed critical and
empirical methodology to the study of Pure Land Buddhism. In the preface to Research on Pure
Land Doctrine, he outlines his methodology as such:
Our only inclination in modern research, regardless of academic background, is to visit [a
subject’s] origins and trace its developmental changes historically, thereby elaborating its
context. At the same time, in paying close attention to it, judging facts from opinions and
thus contributing to the clarification of the truth.
671

Mochizuki’s concern with examining, in the case of this publication, Pure Land doctrine, was
part of a broader intellectual trend of examining the origins and historicity of religious texts
taking place at both imperial universities as well as universities in Europe and the United States.
This approach is seen again in the preface to A Doctrinal History of Chinese Pure Land
Buddhism, a volume developed from his decades of lectures at Taishō University and Taishō’s
predecessor institutions outlined above. In it, Mochizuki explains that while his work is centrally
focused on Chinese Pure Land doctrinal development, he cautions,
However, religious doctrines are accompanied by faith, and this in turn carries within
itself an impetus to dissemination and expansion, so while we are relating the changes

669
Mochizuki, 1914. This first book-length publication was a collection of previously published articles.
670
Mochizuki, 1942.
671
Mochizuki, 1914: 2.
171

and the developments that the Pure Land doctrines have undergone, we are at the same
time narrating the historical facts of the faith’s growth and expansion.
672

At the same time, Mark Blum has argued it is important to see Mochizuki as part of a lineage of
Pure Land scholars, dating as far back as the twelfth century, that were concerned with Chinese
precedent.
673
By Blum’s assessment, the primary contribution made by Mochizuki’s scholarship
is its unparalleled comprehensiveness.
674
While Blum is right to point out that the authority of
Chinese precedent in much of Japanese Buddhist scholarship is certainly not a modern
phenomenon, Mochizuki’s contribution extends beyond comprehensiveness to his application of
new critical methods to the history of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism.
Throughout his career, Mochizuki maintained the delicate balance of pursuing research
that raised questions about the authenticity of several Chinese Buddhist texts that claimed Indian
origins with his role as a leader within the Jōdo sect.
675
Mochizuki’s first published work on this
genre of text known as gikyō,
676
or scriptures with questionable authenticity, was his Research on
The Awakening of Faith.
677
With this, he joined a chorus of scholars beginning in the Meiji
period that published new commentaries and research on the Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith.
678

672
Mochizuki in Payne and Quili, eds. 2016: xi.
673
Blum 2016: 53-4.
674
Blum 2016: 54.
675
Interestingly, Mochizuki’s contemporary Murakami Senshō struggled to strike the same balance and
Murakami’s “A Critique of the Argument that the Mahāyāna Teachings are by the Buddha” (Daijō
bussetsuron hihan 大乗仏説論批判, 1903) was the subject of considerable controversy and became a
leading reason for his leaving the Ōtani denomination’s priesthood.
676
疑経 Charles Muller distinguishes this from the more negatively connoted gikyō 偽経, or apocryphal
scriptures. See DDB entry for “ 疑経” (accessed March 1, 2020).
677
Mochizuki, 1922.
678
Daijō kishin ron 大乗起信論. The text has for centuries been widely taught and commented upon by
Buddhists throughout East Asia. This text was historically attributed to Indian monastic Aśvaghoṣa, but
172

Shibata Taisen argues that Mochizuki’s work, which methodically argued the text was of
Chinese and not Indian provenance, was uniquely impactful among the sea of publications on
The Awakening of Faith.
679
It is noteworthy that Mochizuki adeptly applied these novel critical
methods, ones brought back to Japan by scholars who had studied abroad, without having studied
abroad himself. Furthermore, unlike those well-travelled scholars such as Nanjō Bunyū,
Takakusu Junjirō, and Watanabe Kaikyō who acquired additional Buddhist and European
languages, Mochizuki conducted his research exclusively in Japanese and classical Chinese.
680
In
this way, however, Mochizuki better represents the kind of scholar-priests produced by Japan’s
Buddhist universities, even today.
Mochizuki paired the study of doctrinal development with historical analysis in his
sectarian and trans-sectarian research despite the fact that this occasionally put him at odds with
traditional views about the provenance of Mahayana scriptures. In his last published work, A

its authorship became a subject of debate among scholars beginning in the nineteenth century. In Japan,
this began with Hara Tanzan’s 1885 Two Interpretations on The Awakening of Faith. See Ketelaar 1993:
187-190; Shibata 2014: 264-7.
679
Shibata 2014: 264-7. To illustrate his point, Shibata comprehensively lists all Japanese publications on
The Awakening of Faith from the Meiji, Taishō, and early Showa periods of which the following is just a
fraction: Murakami Senshō’s The Clear ‘Awakening of Faith’ ( the full title is 大乗起信論達意, 1891),
Hosokawa Sengan’s The Awakening of Faith (1898), Shimaji Daitō’s The Awakening of Faith (this was
the first Japanese translation, published in 1903), Ninagawa Tatsuo’s Philosophy of The Awakening of
Faith (1905), Murakami Senshō’s The Meaning of The Awakening of Faith (1912), Shibata asserts that
whereas numerous works preceded Mochizuki’s, upon publication of Mochizuki’s Research, the number
of works on the topic dropped precipitously for several years. Shibata interprets this to be indicative of the
authoritative status Mochizuki’s publication was given by Buddhist academics at the time.
680
Getz argues that this distinction between Mochizuki and his more cosmopolitan peers was not a
limitation for Mochizuki due to his “preternatural familiarity with a vast swath of East Asian texts,
Buddhist and otherwise” (2016: 14).
173

History of the Establishment of Buddhist Scriptures,
681
Mochizuki notes “In order to organize
Buddhism's precise history, it is necessary to elucidate the details of the establishment of the
scriptures, and at the same time, examine the contents to clarify the path of doctrinal
development.”
682
Mochizuki reconciled traditional with modernist scholarly approaches in at
least two of the following ways. First, by arguing that the authenticity of a text was not based on
whether it originated in India with Śākyamuni Buddha, but rather that Mahayana teachings were
part of the natural evolution of Buddhism.
683
Second, as Getz has argued, Mochizuki believed
the texts he studied possessed an “ultimate ineffable truth” that transcended reason.
684
This “core
truth”
685
in turn made it possible to employ empirical methods that questioned the historical
authenticity of some texts without undermining their religious value.

The Bukkyō Daijiten and its Significance
Among the wider Buddhist Studies world in Mochizuki’s lifetime and today, Mochizuki
is best known for his trans-sectarian project: the Bukkyō Daijiten, an encyclopedic work that,
upon completion, totaled five volumes with an additional historical timeline volume. The
Daijiten took three decades to complete, from 1906 to 1936. In the final four years of the project,
Mochizuki retired from Taishō University and devoted himself to its completion.

681
Mochizuki, 1946.
682
Mochizuki, 1946: 2.
683
Mochizuki, 1930, 14. This publication, Jōdokyō no kigen oyobi hattatsu 浄土教の起原及発達, was
adapted from his Tokyo Imperial University doctoral dissertation “Research on the Origins and
Development of Pure Land Teachings” (Jōdokyō kigen oyobi hattatsu ni suru kenkyū 浄土教起原及び発
達にする研究”) a work that exceeded eight hundred pages.
684
Getz 2016: 18.
685
yōtai 要諦
174

Properly contextualizing the magnitude of the Bukkyō Daijiten requires a brief return to
the state of Buddhist scholarship in the early Meiji period. As covered in the chapter on
curricular reforms the early Meiji period saw a wave of renewed interest in Gyōnen’s Essentials
of the Eight Sects. Several scholars have provided explanations for the text’s revival. Miura Shū
understands this surge as part of a curricular trend he refers to as “compactification,” which
sought succinct summations of Buddhist history and doctrine in order to support shorter program
lengths required for government accreditation. James Ketelaar credits the revived interest in
Gyōnen’s work with a desire by Buddhist academics to reorganize studies under a more unified
Buddhist identity, thus providing a stronger defense against critics.
686
Orion Klautau explains
that interest in Gyōnen among early Buddhist scholars was an interest in historical and
comparative methods in order to draw out a shared “essence” across the Buddhist sects.
687
As
Klautau’s work uncovers, a few decades into the Meiji period, interest in Gyōnen subsided and
was gradually replaced by texts with titles like Murakami Senshō et al’s “Comprehensive
History of Japanese Buddhism.”
688
This signaled a major transition from the “annalistic”
scholasticism traditionally seen in pre-Meiji Japanese Buddhist academies to the modern
Buddhological-style scholarship conducted at both secular and sectarian universities beginning in
the Meiji period.
689

As the editor of the Daijiten, Mochizuki was the nexus of seventy-eight contributing
scholars across all sects. The work spans the transmission of Buddhism from India to China and
Japan, and articles are indexed in Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit, and Pali. This multi-lingual

686
Ketelaar 1993: 177-184.
687
Klautau 2011: 83.
688
Murakami et al 1897.
689
Klautau 2009: 82.
175

approach reflected a growing competence in Buddhist languages among Japanese scholars, many
of whom had studied abroad for many years to acquire.
690
Entries covered doctrinal
developments as well as socio-cultural and historical developments. Mochizuki writes in the
preface,
The dictionary must be the most accurate because it is intended to guide scholars
(gakusha 学者). Therefore, if the volumes are very detailed, do not pay much
consideration or [expend] great labor over it. Especially Buddhist dictionaries interpret
difficult to understand terminology plainly, and the history of the transmitted teachings
from the last two thousand and several hundred years since India. It covers all matters
related to various beliefs, the activities of high priests, temples, and ceremonial customs,
etc.
691

Here Mochizuki is clear about the goals and content of the work: to provide a comprehensive
tool for Buddhist Studies scholars, using the term “gakusha,” rather than sōryo (priest) or gakusō
(scholar-priest). In its approach, scale, and scope, Getz argues that the Bukkyō Daijiten is the
most representative work of both the kind of collaboration taking places across sects and the
“synthetic and universalistic approach to the Buddhist tradition” produced by this early
generation of modern Buddhist Studies scholars.
692
To this I would add that the
representativeness of the Bukkyō Daijiten extends to Mochizuki himself.
In a 2004 roundtable discussion with scholars and administrators from some of Japan’s
Buddhist sectarian universities, Watanabe Hōyō,
693
Professor Emeritus and former President of

690
Getz 2016: 9.
691
Mochizuki 1936: 2.
692
Getz 2016: 9.
693
渡辺宝陽
176

Risshō University
694
exclaimed, “It’s said that when Mochizuki Shinkō was compiling the
Mochizuki Bukkyō Daijiten he was so dedicated to his work that he financially ruined two
temples!...That’s the kind of priest we need today! Someone who goes so far as to plunge their
temple into ruin.”
695
What Watanabe is playfully revealing here is that even outside of
Mochizuki’s own sect, he remains the paragon scholar of modern Buddhist Studies in Japan.
Mochizuki's work embodied, and attempted to resolve, the intra-sectarian tensions seen in the
Meiji period protests that we studied in the previous chapter. His career demonstrated ways
sectarian scholars could be ecumenical while maintaining sectarian identity. Mochizuki’s
scholarship managed to both advance the study of Pure Land Buddhism and critique long-held
beliefs and interpretations of Buddhist texts.

Conclusion
The lives, careers, and methodologies of Hara Tanzan, Nanjō Bunyū, and Mochizuki
Shinkō varied in a number of notable ways. The circuitous nature of Tanzan’s biography reflects
his eclectic and experimental approach, but Mochizuki was a much straighter arrow. Mochizuki
spent most of his career in the Jōdo sectarian context, while Tanzan and Nanjō spent significant
portions of their careers teaching Buddhism in a secular setting with a patchwork of other
teaching posts both inside and outside their own sects. Each men’s scholarship, however,
transcended their own sectarian affiliations. In contrast to Nanjō who was a well-travelled
polyglot, neither Tanzan nor Mochizuki spent any time abroad, or worked in languages other
than Japanese and Chinese. However, this fact makes Tanzan and Mochizuki more, not less,

694
立正大学 This university is affiliated with the Nichiren sect.
695
Fujii et al 2004: 462. By “financially ruining two temples,” Watanabe is likely referring to high cost of
producing such a work as the Bukkyō Daijiten.
177

representative of the modern scholar-priest, as the vast majority do not study abroad or acquire
additional research languages. Still, even for those who never travelled, the methods and
networks forged in part by Nanjō continue to impact the way scholar-priests approach their
studies and view their work. It is further notable that Hara was a scholar before he was a
Buddhist and that Nanjō and Mochizuki were Buddhists before they were scholars. Seen in this
light, Hara’s efforts to reinterpret Buddhism through a scholarly lens could be seen as an attempt
to bend Buddhism toward his first proclivity of scholasticism. Both Nanjō and Mochizuki, on the
other hand, in their massive bodies of work made no attempts to alter Buddhism but rather used
scholarly tools to reframe Buddhism for a scholarly community that during the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries were growing considerably in scale and scope. Despite different
approaches these three men, like so many of their scholar-priest contemporaries, shared an
interest in rearticulating Buddhism in ways that confronted modernist critiques.
So, what can Tanzan’s, Nanjō’s, and Mochizuki’s careers tell us about the modern
scholar-priest? For one, their work demonstrates that the modernization of Buddhist education
and Buddhist Studies was not a passive response to the Western project of modernity, but rather
an indigenous process beginning in the years leading up to the Meiji period and continuing
through their lifetimes. In Buddhist Studies, four methodological pillars emerged: scientific,
philosophical, philological, and historical. As this chapter discussed, Tanzan’s approach involved
the former two, while Nanjō and Mochizuki employed the latter. Tanzan’s interest in and
engagement with natural sciences predated the opening of Japan in the Bakumatsu era, and
although many of his pseudo-scientific, psychosomatic theories went unproven, the connection
between Buddhism and Western science was never fully lost and is experiencing a renewed
178

scholarly interest today.
696
The methods developed and popularized by Tanzan, Nanjō, and
Mochizuki were not entirely novel. Rather, as this chapter has pointed out, they built off endemic
epistemological, cosmological, metaphysical, and annalistic traditions and merged these with
scholarly discourses coming from the West.
These men possessed the qualities of the modern scholar-priest posited at the start of this
inquiry: (1) engagement with Western methods and discourses, (2) conscious reconstruction of
the relationship between Japanese Buddhism and Buddhism in the rest of Asia, and (3) the
demonstration of Buddhism’s compatibility with modernity through strategic engagement with
modern institutions. In these ways the modern scholar-priest emerged as a discrete entity from
previous generations of scholar priests and gave rise to a new class of professional within the
priesthood. In the final extension of our botanical metaphor, the new shoots in the previous
chapter gave rise to ever stronger branches of modern scholar-priests, and from these branches
bloomed the field of modern Buddhist Studies.

696
Arguably, the lifeline maintaining the connection between Buddhism and science was the development
of modern psychology. Setting aside the contentious debate about whether psychology is or is not a ‘true’
science, psychology has embraced the scientific method in the nineteenth century and more recently it has
adopted neuroscience in subfields such as cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology. D.T. Suzuki’s
influence on some of modern psychology’s earliest stars such as Carl Jung and Karen Horney ensured that
subsequent generations of psychologists would continue to study Buddhism. With the parallel
developments of advancement of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology and growing Western
interest in mindfulness and meditation practices, the world has seen a surge in scientific studies
investigating Buddhist practices.
179

Epilogue
This dissertation has centered Buddhist universities in the modern transformation of the
priesthood in Meiji era. This transformation built off infrastructural and intellectual antecedents
from the preceding Tokugawa era and accelerated in the turmoil of the Meiji reformation. In
Chapter 1, we examined the infrastructural antecedents including school buildings, texts,
curricula, and scholarly networks, as well as intellectual trends such as textualism,
fundamentalism, and polemics over “practical” studies. These antecedents provided necessary
context for the work of our subsequent chapters, allowing us to assess where and to what extent
innovations took place within Buddhist higher education in the Meiji period. The findings of
Chapter 1 reveal that within Tokugawa-era Buddhist higher education, doctrinal developments
were modest but institutional developments were substantial, and that it was these institutional
developments that provided “fertile grounds” for the transformation seen in the latter half of the
nineteenth century.
Chapter 2 tracked the transition from Buddhist seminaries to Buddhist academies over the
first few decades of the Meiji period primarily through the lens of curricula. A detailed
examination of Ōtani denomination’s Gohōjō reflected a microcosm of the tensions between
conservative and reformer factions that beset Buddhist sects at the start of the Meiji era.
Comparative analysis across other sects revealed a radical restructuring of academic programs to
adhere to rapidly evolving national standards of higher education. These curricular and structural
reforms supplied the “seeds of change” for Buddhist higher educational institutions, shifted
clerical identity from a sectarian to a global orientation, and catalyzed the emergence of the
modern scholar-priest. Japan scholars have often observed in this period the Buddhist
priesthood’s move from status to profession, but they have not always adequately explained this
180

shift. In Chapter 2, professionalization theory and an exploration of global trends in religious
higher education explained this transition as a result of at least two factors. First,
professionalization was due to an increase in the breadth and depth of clerical education in order
to stay ahead of rising education levels of the general populace. Second, professionalization was
a response to a growing skepticism among the global elite class toward religion and its seeming
incompatibility with modernity and scientific reasoning. This skepticism uncovered the need to
educate priests so that they could skillfully deploy scientific and modernist discourse in the
service of defending Buddhism against its critics.
One of the more visible signs of the shift in institutional culture within these newly
reformed Buddhist academies were student protests and collective action. Chapter 3 explored
several instances of conflict between students, faculty, and administrators as early indications, or
“new shoots,” of the modern scholar-priesthood. That these conflicts were often recurring
demonstrates that institutional change was often the cause of the conflict and the source of
subsequent pushes for further reform. Likewise, I interpret these protests as both a cause and
source of a growing intellectual autonomy from the sects.
I further explained these instances of conflict as signs of institutional translation (in the
discursive institutionalist sense) by local actors (student-priests), which challenges more passive
understandings of the individual’s role in institutional change. Then, building off the discussion
in Chapter 2, I examined new institutionalism and professionalization theory to underscore the
process through which professions are rationalized. This process illuminated a key distinction
between the modern scholar-priest and earlier versions of the profession. Namely, that modern
scholar-priests were expected to articulate the “moral mysteries” of Buddhist doctrine and
181

practice within the language of modern scholarly discourse which valorized the “impersonal
techniques” of science.
Chapter 4 animated these developments in the lives of three foundational modern scholar-
priests. Through discussion of their individual contributions to the nascent field of modern
Japanese Buddhist Studies, I highlighted the ways in which Tanzan (“the pioneer”), Nanjō (“the
polymath”), and Mochizuki (“the paragon”), shared many of the qualities of the modern scholar-
priest. In addition to innovations that integrated emic and endemic approaches with Western
methods and discourse, Tanzan, Nanjō, and Mochizuki cultivated scholarly relationships,
resulting in the creation of domestic and transnational networks of secular and sectarian scholars
that fundamentally shaped the way Buddhism would be studied in Japan and globally. Together,
these scholars and their networks make the “branches and blooms” of our metaphor.
Let us return once more to the questions guiding this study: (1) How did Buddhist higher
education change in nineteenth-century Japan; and (2) What effect did these changes have on the
priesthood? This dissertation has identified four interrelated outcomes in response to these
questions. First, the diversification of clerical curricula beginning in the early Meiji period
shifted the orientation of the priesthood, from sectarian to global. Second, these curricular and
structural reforms marked a transition from traditional seminaries to modern academies (and
eventually, universities), distinguished in part by a greater degree of intellectual autonomy from
the sects. Third, increased intellectual autonomy created room for new roles to be imagined
within the priesthood, including the modern scholar-priest. Finally, as products of these
academies (made universities in the 1920s), modern scholar-priests made lasting contributions to
the global field of Buddhist Studies by skillfully combining Japanese and Western methods and
182

discourse and redefining the relationship between Japanese Buddhism and Buddhism in the rest
of Asia.

Ripe for the Picking: Future Avenues of Inquiry
This study began in response to calls from scholars on both sides of the Pacific for a
better understanding of the history and role of Japanese Buddhist universities on modern
Japanese Buddhism and their impact on the field of Buddhist Studies in Japan and abroad.
697
But
like all worthy topics, there remains more work to do. This epilogue outlines a roadmap of
several promising directions this research could grow. It is my hope that scholars who share my
curiosity about Buddhist educational history, the central role actors play in shaping institutions,
and the inextricable link between institutions and ideas, will join me in these future avenues.

Additional Case Studies
As discussed in the introduction, the selection of case studies necessarily privileges the
histories of those institutions and runs the risk of perpetuating their narratives while obscuring
others. There remain many more Buddhist universities whose histories should be examined. For
instance, the Nichiren sect’s Risshō University,
698
which like our case studies boasts a history
stretching back into the sixteenth century, presently has an enrollment of over ten thousand
students. The Nichiren sect’s long history of antiestablishment tensions with the state and
exclusivist stances towards other religious traditions set it apart from the case studies examined
in this dissertation. As Jacqueline Stone has written, the events of the Bakumatsu and Meiji eras

697
Especially from Ejima et al 2014 and Rowe 2011.
698
立正大学 Risshō Daigaku
183

gave rise to new debates and experiments within Nichiren doctrinal interpretation, especially the
doctrines of shakubuku
699
and the shōju.
700
The ways in which these debates shaped and were
shaped by developments taking place within Risshō University and its institutional predecessors
would undoubtedly contribute to a fuller picture of the spectrum of Buddhist sect’s responses to
changes in the institutional and educational landscape during the Meiji period.
701

Kōyasan University
702
of the Shingon sect was established as a modern academy in 1886
but the Shingon sect’s educational history on Mount Koya dates to the ninth century. Abe
Takako has written on the Shingon sect’s markedly slower adoption of curricular reforms in the
Meiji period when compared with its peers,
703
but the effects of this conservatism in subsequent
decades are not yet well examined. And while it boasts the world’s only Buddhist Esoteric
Studies Department, Koyasan University’s struggles with declining enrollment are known
throughout Buddhist higher education circles in Japan.
704
The decision to remain narrowly
focused on clerical education and a stronger reluctance to branch out from its core Buddhist
identity, would serve as an important contrastive case to the examples studied here.
705

699
折伏 The stricter of two Buddhist canonical methods for teaching the dharma, shakubuku, meaning “to break and
subdue,” refers to the practice of rejecting “wrong views,” interpreted by Nichiren as all traditions that did not
recognize the supremacy of the Lotus Sutra. See Stone 1994: 233.
700
摂受 The gentler of the two canonical methods for teaching the dharma, shōju, meaning “to embrace and accept,”
suggests abstaining from criticism and taking a gradual approach. See Stone 1994: 233.
701
Annaka Naofumi has written a broad overview of the Nichiren sect’s higher educational reforms in the modern
era in Ejima et al 2017: 131-156.
702
高野山大学 Kōyasan Daigaku
703
Abe 2014.
704
See Fujii et al 2004: 464.
705
Only in recent years has Koyasan University announced a few new programs and partnerships in order to boost
enrollment. See Wisman 2019.
184

Buddhist Women’s Higher Education
Until now, we have focused our studies on institutions historically aimed at educating
male clerics, however much work remains in the area of Buddhist women’s higher education.
Paula Arai has examined developments to Sōtō Zen nuns’ education in the Meiji period through
the lens of the enterprising nuns who circumvented male sectarian leadership to establish their
own schools.
706
Beyond these Sōtō case studies, Musashino University,
707
founded by modern
Buddhist Studies pioneer Takakusu Junjirō in 1924 for the education of Jōdo Shin women,
would make a fascinating case study that is yet untapped by scholars. Other researchers, in their
work profiling the life and works of Buddhist women, have given us glimpses into their
education in the modern period,
708
but a multi-sect study of higher education for Buddhist
women remains unwritten.

Synchronic and Diachronic Expansions
While this study has made inroads by contextualizing Japanese Buddhist higher
education within a global context, a transnational study of the modernization of Buddhist higher
education across Asia in the early twentieth century would be a boon to the field of Buddhist
Studies and the history of higher education. Several times in my archival research, I came across
the name of a foreign exchange student or foreign instructor, etched into an enrollment register
or payroll list, only to find no additional information about these visitors. The network of intra-
Buddhist scholarly interactions within Buddhist Asia and their impact hold potential for
reframing our understanding of the development of modern Buddhist Studies and modern

706
Arai 1999: 49-81. These schools gained sectarian approval to train nuns and governmental accreditation for
general education in the early twentieth century.
707
武蔵野大学
708
See for example Mitchell 2016, Rowe 2017, Starling 2019.
185

Buddhist identity. This work would add to a growing body of research on intra-Asian and global
Buddhist networks by looking at the role played by Buddhist universities in fostering these
networks.
709

Furthermore, this dissertation has focused on the latter half of the nineteenth century,
with only brief mentions of subsequent developments at the end of the Meiji and into the Taishō
periods. As Ejima et al.’s three volume project on the history of universities and religion in
modern Japan demonstrates, there is much more material to cover extending into the present day.
There are important questions raised by Ejima et al.’s second volume in the series, which focuses
on wartime Japan, about the role of Buddhist universities in supporting the war efforts and
memorializing the war dead, developments in Buddhist Studies to justify or criticize Japan’s
involvement in the war, and issues of governmental censorship of scholarly publications.
710

Looking to the post-war period, Jolyon Thomas’ recent work has shed new light on the meaning
of religious freedom in occupied and post-war Japan.
711
At the same time that legal definitions of
religious freedom were being reexamined, Japan’s educational landscape was experiencing a
complete overhaul on a scale not seen since the Meiji period. Accordingly, we need to better
understand how these two major developments intersected at Buddhist universities, in part
because they bear relevance for the structure and identity of these institutions even today.
On the issue of identity, many of the same questions that concerned Meiji-era Buddhist
educators persist into the present. Fujii Masao, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Taishō
University, reflected in 2004, “I think this is the same at every university. How do we go about
properly creating and defining clerical identities along with general social identities?”
712

709
Recent studies include Jaffe 2019,
710
Ejima et al. 2017.
711
Thomas 2020.
712
Fujii et al. 2004: 446.
186

Upholding the traditional mission of these institutions, to educate and train priests, while also
meeting modern expectations of the value and purpose of a university education, has not been
easy for any Buddhist university, even the most successful. I mentioned in the introduction that
Komazawa was the most well-known Zen-affiliated universities in Japan. But importantly, it is
more likely to be known among the general public in Japan for its sports than for its Zen identity.
Often during my research year when conversing with a Japanese person, they would ask me
about my research. Whenever I told someone I was studying Buddhist universities, the follow up
question was usually, “Such as…?” to which I would respond by telling them my three case
studies. That Taishō and Ōtani Universities were Buddhist institutions came as little surprise to
most, but quite often the response to Komazawa was, “Really? Komazawa is a Buddhist
school?” In fact, Komazawa is more likely to be known for their long distance running or
baseball teams than for their Buddhist affiliation.
In that same roundtable in 2004, Komazawa Professor of Buddhist Studies Ishii Seijun
713

observed, “Recently, at Komazawa, the sectarian character has…been watered down. We
actually have four professors in the Buddhist Studies faculty who no longer are registered
priests.”
714
Ishii also pointed out that in contrast to the declining interest in Sōtō Studies, student
interest in non-Zen forms of Buddhism and in other religions is much higher. As of 2003, just
312, or two percent, of Komazawa’s 15,600 students were from temple families, compared to
480 (ten percent) of Taishō’s 4800 students, and 768 (sixteen percent) of Ōtani’s 4800
students.
715
Though students from temple families does not constitute the entirety of Buddhist
students on each campus, they constitute the large majority of students attending for the purposes

713
石井清純
714
Fujii et al 2004: 442.
715
Ibid: 464.
187

of preparing for a career in the priesthood. If we take size as one (albeit imperfect)
approximation of a university’s success in recruiting students, a natural question that flows from
data like this is, what is the relationship between a school’s success and its Buddhist identity?
Further study of Buddhist universities in the contemporary period that addresses the continued
challenge faced by these institutions to balance their pasts with their futures holds wider
implications for the role of religion and religious studies in higher education and society at large.
The avenues for future study outlined above promise not only to uncover fresh insights
within the history of Buddhist universities, though I hope to have convinced a few readers of the
worthiness of such an endeavor, but also to bridge these institutions to larger questions of
Buddhist identity in the modern period and Buddhism’s role in contemporary society. Beyond
the details specific to Japanese Buddhism, studies such as the one just completed and the future
ones suggested above contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between
religion and higher education, and between individuals, ideas, and institutions.
188

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204

Appendix 1: Timeline of Institutional and Name Changes

Ōtani University
1665 Gakuryō 学寮
1754 Takakura Gakuryō 高倉学寮
1868 Gohōjō 護法場 added as a separate institution to study
non-Buddhist subjects.
1873 Gohōjō closes; Takakura Gakuryō becomes Kanrenjō
貫練場
1882 Daigakuryō 大学寮
1896 The Daigakuryō becomes Shinshū Daigaku 真宗大学
and a separate institution is established, Takakura
Daigakuryō 高倉大学寮.
1904 Shinshū Daigaku 真宗大学, legally recognized
1907 Takakura Daigakuryō 高倉大学寮, legally recognized
1911 Shinshū Ōtani Daigaku 真宗大谷大学
1922 Ōtani Daigaku 大谷大学

Komazawa University
1592 Kichichō-ji Ega Gakuryō 吉祥寺会下学寮
1657 Sendanrin 栴檀林
1875 Sōtōshū Senmon Gakkō 曹洞宗専門学校
1882 Sōtōshū Daigakurin Senmon Gakkō 曹洞宗大学林専
門本校
1904 Sōtōshū Daigakurin 曹洞宗大学林
1905 Sōtōshū Daigaku 曹洞宗大学
1925 Komazawa Daigaku 駒澤大学

205

Taishō University
Jōdo sect 1615 Kantō Jūhachi Danrin 関東十八檀林 (note: this
was the name for the consortium of individual
schools based in temples throughout the Kantō
region)
1884 Jōdoshū Daikyōin 浄土宗大教院
1903 Jōdoshū Kōtōgakuin 浄土宗高等学院
1904
(May)
Jōdo Shūkyō Daigakuin 浄土宗教大学院
1904
(October)
Jōdoshū Daigaku 浄土宗大学
1907 Shūkyō Daigaku 宗教大学
1926 Taishō Daigaku 大正大学
Shingon
sect-
Buzan
School
( 豊山派)
c. 1780-
1801
(Kansei
寛政 era)
Buzan Gakkō 豊山学校
1908 Buzan Daigaku 豊山大学
1926 Taishō Daigaku 大正大学
Shingon
sect-
Chisan
School
( 智山派)
c.1684-
1688
(Jōkyō 貞
享 era)
Kangakuin 勧学院
1914 Shingi Shingon Chisan-ha Shiritsu Daigaku
Chisan-ha Kangakuin 新義真言宗智山派私立
大学智山勧学院
1929 Chisan Senmon Gakkō 智山専門学校
1943 Merged with Taishō Daigaku
Tendai sect 1625 Toeizan Kaneiji Kangakuin 東叡山寛永寺勧学
院
1904 Tendaishū Daigaku 天台宗大学
1926 Taishō Daigaku 大正大学

206

Appendix 2: 1825 Year-in-the-Gakuryō
716

Month 月 Date 日 Event Notes
1 月 1 日―1 月 3 日 Service for the New Year
1 月 15 日 Memorial Service- Month of Keizen's
death
Kōgenin Keizen
717
was
the first person to hold
the Head Lecturer
position at the school
from 1728-1764.
1 月 29 日-2 月 5 日 Spring Equinox Ceremony
3 月 2 日 Doll Festival
3 月 29 日 Installation of Dormitory
Administrator
718

4 月 5 日 Submission of request for permission
from Higashi Honganji administrators
to hold the summer lecture sessions.

4 月 10 日-4 月 11 日 Attendance is taken
4 月 14 日 Summer Ango lecture opening
ceremony
This was the most
important lecture series
of the year.
719

4 月 15 日 Summer Ango lecture opening lecture
4 月 17 日 Opening supplemental lecture
720

4 月 21 日 Reading group starts
5 月 5 日 Boys’ Festival
5 月 13 日 Submission of request for permission
from Higashi Honganji administrators
to end the reading group.

6 月 6 日 Mid-summer visitation to deliver
bonuses

6 月 7 日 Submission of request for permission to
hold the next summer lecture.

6 月 18 日 Last lecture of the supplemental
lectures
721

716
This table is a translation of the list of dates and events from the ODN, page 19. The ODN’s dates and
descriptions are based on information provided in the Jōshu ryō nikki 上首寮日記 (Journal of the Head
Administrator of the Dormitories), and discrepancies are noted where relevant.
717
香厳院恵然
718
知事
719
ODN: 26.
720
The supplemental lectures, naikō 内講, were given by junior lecturers （擬講）.
721
The dates for this differ between the ODN and the Joshu ryō nikki. The Joshu ryō nikki notes that the
last lecture takes place on the twenty-fourth date of the sixth month (1987: 75).
207

6 月 24 日 Summer lecture final lecture
6 月 27 日 Academy's Ho'onko Service
7 月 1 日 Initiation for the Dorm Administrator
7 月 7 日 Tanabata
7 月 11 日-7 月 12 日 Airing out the book collection
722

7 月 13 日-7 月 15 日 Obon
7 月 15 日 Chugen
723
Ceremony This ceremony was held
on the fifteenth day of
seventh lunar month, or
midpoint of the lunar
calendar. This tradition
involved sutra-reading to
stave off bad luck.
724

7 月 17 日 Request to the Lecturer
725
for
assignment of Primary and Secondary
Dormitory Managers.
726

Request regarding assignment of
Dormitory Administrators.

7 月 24 日 Submission of request for permission
from Higashi Honganji administrators
to hold the fall lecture sessions.
727

8 月 1 日 Head Administrator has this day off.

Holiday
728

commemorating
Tokugawa Ieyasu’s
establishment of the
Bakufu in Edo.
8 月 3 日 Fall opening lecture
8 月 14 日 Fall Equinox Ceremony
9 月 1 日 Submission of request to end the fall
lectures

9 月 6 日 Fall closing lecture
9 月 9 日 Chrysanthemum Festival

722
蔵書虫干
723
中元
724
See Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, “ 中元,” www.buddhism-dict.net (Accessed 12/1/20).
725
講師
726
本・擬寮司
727
This is missing in the Joshu ryō nikki and may have been merged with an entry from three days later
(1987: 80).
728
八朔
208

Closing of the Dormitory
Administrators’ offices and sending of
notices of assignments to Dormitory
Administrators.
9 月 11 日 Start of supplemental lectures
10 月 25 日 Start of supplemental lectures and
reading group

11 月 7 日-11 月 8 日 Associate Lecturer’s Ho'onko Service
Lecture

11 月 20 日 Head Administrator’s Ho'onko Service
Lecture

12 月 1 日 Start of reading group
12 月 30 日 End of year celebration
In addition to these events, they held monthly rites on the death anniversaries of four people:
15th of the month: Keizen ( 香厳院恵然 see above)
17th of the month: Senmyō ( 円乗院宣明 (dates unknown; Head of School from 1811- 1821))
22nd of the month: Jōnyo ( 乗如, the 19th Abbot of Higashi Honganji (1744-1792))
28th of the month: Shinran
209

Appendix 3: Ōtani Denomination’s Gakuryō Organizational Chart
from the Bunsei Era (1818-1830)
729

Gakuryō Magistrate 学寮奉行 Inspector Magistrate 監寮奉行
(governmental post) Gakuryō Governor 寮支配
(sectarian posts)

Lecturer 講師

Associate Lecturer 嗣講

Junior Lecturer 擬講

Head Administrator of the Dormitories 上首

Dormitory Administrator 知事

Primary Dormitory Managers 【本】寮司

Secondary Dormitory Managers 擬寮司

Student body 大衆（所化）

729
This is a translation of the organizational chart from the Jōshu ryō nikki (1987: 275).
210

Appendix 4: List of Tendai texts used in the Tokugawa Period

Text Name
(Taishō number provided where
applicable)
Notes
西谷名目
Nishitani Myōmoku
A text outlining the doctrine of Tendai,
compilation date is unknown.
天台四教儀
Tendai Shikyōgi
(T1931.46.773-780)
A tenth-century text outlining Tiantai doctrine
from the Korean monk Chegwan 諦観 (?-
970).
天台四教儀集註
Tendai Shikyōgi Shucchū
A fourteenth-century commentary of
Chegwan’s Tendai Shikyōgi written by the
Chinese monk Mengrun 蒙潤 (1275-1342).
天台菩薩戒蔬
Tendai Bosatsukai Sho
(T 1812)
An eighth-century commentary attributed to
the Chinese monk Mingkuang 明曠 (Tang
period, dates unknown), appended to a
commentary on the Brahmā’s Net Sutra 梵網
経 by the fourth patriarch of Chinese Tiantai,
Zhiyi 智顗 (538-597).
法界次第
Hokkai Shidai
(T 1925)
A sixth-century text outlining Buddhist
teachings in six fascicles and three-hundred
parts by Zhiyi.
顕密音要
Kenmitsu Onyō
Unable to locate information on this text.
悉曇切次
Shittan Setsuji
Unable to locate information on this text.
摩訶止観
Makashikan
(T 1911)
A late sixth and early seventh century
philosophical and meditation text based on
Zhiyi’s lectures and compiled by his disciple
Guanding 灌頂 (561-632). With the Hokke
Mongu and the Hokke Gengi, the three core
commentaries in the Tiantai tradition.
法華文句
Hokke Mongu
(T 1718)
A late sixth-century Lotus Sutra commentary
written by Zhiyi and edited by Guanding.
With the Makashikan and the Hokke Gengi,
the three core commentaries in the Tiantai
tradition.
法華玄義
Hokke Gengi
(T 1716)
A late sixth-century Lotus Sutra commentary
written by Zhiyi and edited by Guanding,
focusing on the deeper meanings of the text.
With the Hokke Mongu and the Makashikan,
the three core commentaries in the Tiantai
tradition.
211

金光明疏
Konkōmyōsho
(T 1787)
Golden Light Sutra commentary by Jizang 古
蔵 (549-623)

金光明玄義
Konkōmyō Gengi
(T 1783)
Golden Light Sutra commentary by Zhiyi and
Guanding.
観音玄義
Kannon Gengi
(T 1726)
Sixth-century commentarial lectures on the
Avalokitêśvara chapter of The Lotus Sutra
given by Zhiyi and compiled by Guanding.

観音疏記
Kannon Shoki
(T 1729)
A late tenth or early eleventh-century sub-
commentary on Zhiyi’s Kannon Gengi
written by the Chinese monk Zhili 知禮 (960-
1028).
観経妙宗要
Kangyō Myōshūyō
Outline of the Profound Principles of the
Contemplation Sutra. Compiled in 1021.
Appended to Zhiyi’s Commentary on the
Contemplation Sutra 観経疏 (T 1750)
十不二門指要鈔
Jūfunimon Shiyō Shō
(T 1928)
A late tenth or early eleventh-century sub-
commentary on two commentaries on the
deeper meaning of the Lotus Sutra: Zhiyi’s
Hokke Gengi and Zhanran’s 湛然 (711-782,
the sixth Tiantai patriarch) 玄義釋籖 Gengi
Shakusen.
法華経
Hokkekyō
(T 262)
The Lotus Sutra
仁王経
Ninnogyō
(T 245)

Sutra for Humane Kings is an East Asian
sutra that focuses on Buddhist methods for
protection of the state.
朝題目夕念佛
Chōdai Mokuseki Nenbutsu
A morning and evening repentance ritual
using The Lotus Sutra and Amitâbha Sūtra.

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Key stakeholders' role in implementing special education inclusion: leadership and school culture

Asset Metadata

Creator Montrose, Victoria Rose (author)

Core Title Making the modern scholar-priest: Buddhist universities and clerical education reform in Meiji Japan

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program East Asian Languages and Cultures

Publication Date 03/22/2021

Defense Date 03/02/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag 19th century,Buddhism,Buddhist education,Buddhist modernism,education,history of higher education,history of universities,Japan,Meiji period,modernity,OAI-PMH Harvest,Religion

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Meeks, Lori (committee chair), Lai, Rongdao (committee member), Williams, Duncan (committee member)

Creator Email toripinto@gmail.com,vpinto@usc.edu

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