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Religion in medieval Japan
Brian Ruppert
There are at least three issues to consider before endeavoring to study religion in the medieval
Japanese isles, beginning with the matter of what to call it. One scholar has recently argued
that the term “religion” (shūkyō in modern Japanese), should not be used in reference to Japan
prior to the Meiji restoration (1868).^1 Some kind of terminology must, however, be used to
convey the broad set of beliefs and practices in premodern Japan, and most scholars studying
premodern Japan continue to use the term since there are few useful alternatives. Moreover, a
practice of using the original Japanese terminology without translation would unduly limit the
readership to those students of history who have undertaken advanced study of the Japanese
language.
The periodization of “medieval” religion is also the subject of ongoing debate in academic
circles. In the postwar period, scholars often identified medieval religion directly with the histor-
ical development of the Kamakura shogunate and the presumed “advent” of “Kamakura new
Buddhism” that changed the religious landscape. Inoue Mitsusada, in particular, took the view
that a clear line could be drawn between “old” Buddhism, marked by elitist paths to enlighten-
ment and the interests of those at the top of the social hierarchy, on the one end, and “new”
Buddhism, marked by simplified paths to enlightenment open to the masses, on the other.^2 On
the other hand, Kuroda Toshio’s work and that of Taira Masayuki have been especially influen-
tial in calling such views into question, highlighting the institutional centrality of the eso- exoteric
Buddhism system (kenmitsu taisei) throughout the medieval era, arguing that “Kamakura new
Buddhism” on the whole gained an equal institutional footing only in the sixteenth century.^3
Given these trends, for the purposes of this volume and this chapter I have decided to focus on
the twelfth to sixteenth centuries.
It is also important to recognize, initially, the extensive corpus of medieval materials that
remains in manuscript form; the number of unprinted works of the temples is particularly great
in Japan. Thus, on the one hand, scholars have extensive knowledge about the religious life of the
court, inasmuch as a large proportion of extant court journals have already been printed and thus
are available for research; but on the other, their knowledge of the religious life in the shrine-
temple complexes remains woefully incomplete.^4