temple wives play a vital—although still frequently un-
acknowledged—part in managing the temple, serving
parishioners, raising the temple family, and partici-
pating in the religious activities of the temple.
See also:Meiji Buddhist Reform
Bibliography
Jaffe, Richard M. Neither Monk nor Layman: Clerical Marriage
in Modern Japanese Buddhism.Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2001.
Kawahashi, Noriko. “Jizoku (Priests’ Wives) in SotoZen Bud-
dhism: An Ambiguous Category.” Japanese Journal of Reli-
gious Studies22/1–2 (1995): 161–183.
Uan Donin. “A Refutation of Clerical Marriage,” tr. Richard M.
Jaffe. In Religions of Asia in Practice: An Anthology,ed. Don-
ald Lopez, Jr. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1999.
RICHARDM. JAFFECOLONIALISM AND BUDDHISM
If colonialism is defined specifically as the enforced oc-
cupation of a region or control of a population, sub-
sequently maintained through either direct coercion or
cultural and ideological hegemony, then Buddhist so-
cieties and cultures have been both subject to, and
agents of, colonialism throughout the centuries. A
good example of the association of Buddhism with
colonial expansionism can be found, for instance, in
the development of certain forms of Buddhist nation-
alism in Japan in the modern era. During the period
of the Meiji Restoration in Japan (1868–1912), Japan
became an increasingly powerful presence in East Asia
as a result of its victories in the Sino-Japanese (1895)
and Russo-Japanese (1904–1905) wars and its emer-
gence on the world stage as a modern nation-state. As
an imperial power Japan also annexed Korea (1910)
and invaded Manchuria (1931), eventually losing con-
trol of these regions after its defeat in World War II.
Buddhism as a justification for colonialism
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
turies a number of Buddhist figures, such as Kimura
Shigeyuki and Mitsui Koshi, upheld the Japanese na-
tion not only as the culmination of Buddhist cultural
development, but also as a legitimating factor in Japan-
ese imperial policies. In this context Buddhist nation-
alist movements and key figures such as the Zen
teacher Soen Shaku (1859–1919) often justified Japan-
ese military expansionism in terms of the missionary
spread of Buddhist teachings and the “upholding of
humanity and civilization” (Soen; see Sharf). Accord-
ing to Tanaka Chigaku (1861–1939), a lay Buddhist
follower inspired by NICHIREN, the Buddhist teaching
reached its fulfillment in the particular form of the
Japanese nation. This, he argued, created a duty on the
part of Japan to spread its own (MAHAYANA) form of
the Buddha’s teachings to the rest of the world, with
the explicit aim of transforming the world into a “vast
Buddhist country.” In 1914 Chigaku founded the “Na-
tional Pillar Society,” a nationalist movement con-
cerned with a spiritual and moral regeneration of
Japan, and attracted a number of followers, including
Ishihara Kanji (1893–1981), the military mastermind
behind the invasion of Manchuria in 1931.
Modern Japanese examples of the commingling of
Buddhist tradition and culture with ultranationalist
and colonialist motivations are striking but not unique
in Buddhist history, especially when the line between
national or ethnic allegiance and Buddhist affiliation
becomes blurred. In the Mahavamsa(Great Chronicle),
a Sinhalese Buddhist chronicle emerging from the Ma-
havihara Buddhist sect of Anuradhapura, the story of
King Dutthagaman’s conquests in Sri Lanka, the
slaughter of his opponents, and the colonization of the
entire island are all justified on the grounds that the
non-Buddhists are in fact “not human.” This justifi-
cation and account of the island’s history is, of course,
all but impossible to reconcile with the Buddha’s own
emphasis upon compassion and nonviolence. The Ma-
havamsa,however, has played a significant role in un-
derpinning the modern historical consciousness of the
Sinhalese people and the rise of some of the more ag-
gressive forms of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism (Sin-
halatva) in the twentieth century.The colonization of Buddhist societies
On a broader historical scale, however, Buddhist soci-
eties have generally been subject to, rather than an ex-
plicit motivating force behind, colonial expansionism.
The Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, for instance,
has resulted in an aggressively pursued policy designed
to suppress Tibetan Buddhist culture and institutions
in line with the antireligious stance of the Chinese
Communist regime. One consequence of this, of
course, has been the Tibetan Buddhist diaspora to In-
dia and the West in the late twentieth century, most
notably that of the DALAILAMA, often referred to as
“the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people,” and cur-COLONIALISM ANDBUDDHISM