ration of Buddhist and local elements of worship
(which came to be identified as Shinto), triggering a
brief but exceedingly violent suppression of Buddhism
that lasted until 1871. Numerous Buddhist clerics were
forcibly laicized, monastery lands were confiscated,
and many temples and works of Buddhist art were de-
stroyed. Even after the overt violence subsided, Bud-
dhists were left reeling by an end to state support,
government-mandated institutional centralization
and restructuring, and the end to state enforcement of
traditional protocols of Buddhist discipline, particu-
larly the prohibitions against such clerical infractions
as eating meat, marriage, and abandoning clerical
dress or tonsure. An additional threat to Buddhism
was posed by the growing influence in Japan of for-
eign Christian missionaries and Japanese Christian
converts, who, along with domestic critics of Bud-
dhism, characterized Buddhism as decadent, corrupt,
impotent, and outdated.
Buddhists responded to the challenges of the Meiji
period at the denominational, clerical, and lay levels.
At the institutional level, leaders of the main Buddhist
denominations availed themselves of the growing cen-
tralization of denominational governance in an effort
to end the clerical abuses that they believed had helped
bring Buddhism to its troubled state. Such leaders as
Fukuda Gyokai (1809–1888), Shaku Unsho (1827–
1909), and Nishiari Bokusan (1821–1910) called on the
Buddhist clergy to voluntarily preserve traditional
Buddhist praxis, especially adherence to the PRECEPTS,
and to ground themselves thoroughly in traditional
Buddhist learning. These reform efforts gave rise to the
adoption of strict new denominational rules and the
creation of centers for clerical education that evolved
into such sectarian universities as today’s Ryukoku,
Otani, and Komazawa universities. The main branches
of the Jodo Shinshu, in particular, sponsored travel and
study in Europe and the United States by such impor-
tant contributors to the construction of modern Japan-
ese Buddhism and Buddhist studies as Akamatsu Renjo
(1841–1919), Kitabatake Doryu(1820–1907), Shimaji
Mokurai (1838–1911), Nanjo Bun’yu (1849–1927),
and Takakusu Junjiro(1866–1945).
Groups of clerics, working independently of the de-
nominations, began movements that aimed to reform
clerical practice, meld Buddhist and Western styles of
PHILOSOPHYand scholarship, and restructure denom-
inational governance. Notable among the cleric-led
movements that sought to extend Buddhist morality
into day-to-day social life were Kiyozawa Manshi’s
(1863–1903) Jodo Shin-based “spiritualist” movement
(Seishin shugi); the pro-temperance Hanseikai (Self-
reflection Society), which was led by such Nishi Hon-
ganji notables as Takakusu Junjiro, MURAKAMISEN-
SHO, INOUEENRYO, and Furukawa Rosen (1871–1899);
and Shaku Unsho’s Tokkyokai (Morality Society).
Other clerical reformers, for example, Kuruma Taku-
do (1877–1964), Tanabe Zenchi, and Nakazato Nis-
sho, worked for the acceptance of clerical marriage and
the creation of an educated Buddhist clergy that was
totally engaged with family, social, and national affairs.
Lay Buddhist movements, stimulated by the growth
of a literate middle class, were also a major feature of
the religious landscape during the Meiji era. Such for-
mer clerics as Inoue Enryo, Ouchi Seiran (1845–1918),
Daido Choan (1843–1908), and Tanaka Chigaku
(1861–1939) founded new lay Buddhist organizations
that ran the political gamut from liberal to very con-
servative. These groups variously sought to create a
new Buddhism that would play an integral role in the
daily lives of their members, give Buddhism intellec-
tual parity with Western religion, philosophy, and sci-
ence, and, at the same time, provide solid ideological
support for the new Japanese nation-state. Ouchi’s
Sonno Hobutsu Daidodan (Great Association for
Revering the Emperor and Worshipping the Buddha)
and Tanaka Chigaku’s Nichiren-based, lay religious
groups that evolved into Kokuchukai (National Pillar
Society) were vehemently anti-Christian and strongly
nationalistic. These movements served as influential
models for many of the Buddhist-based new religious
movements that arose in the first half of the twentieth
century.See also:Clerical Marriage in Japan; JapanBibliography
Collcutt, Martin. “Buddhism: The Threat of Eradication.” In
Japan in Transition,ed. Marius Jansen and Gilbert Rozman.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.
Grapard, Allan G. “Japan’s Ignored Cultural Revolution: The
Separation of Shintoand Buddhist Divinities in Meiji (Shin-
butsu Bunri) and a Case Study: Tonomine.” History of Reli-
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Ketelaar, James Edward. Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Snodgrass, Judith. Presenting Japanese Buddhism to the West:
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Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.RICHARDM. JAFFEMEIJIBUDDHISTREFORM