Religious Studies: A Global View

Nishida’s philosophy was a part of modern Buddhist studies, which began

during the Meiji era. Its mainstream was textual studies, initiated by Buny

Nanjÿ(Nanjio Bunyiu, 1849–1927), who studied under Max Müller at Oxford

and introduced Western-style philology and the study of Sanskrit to Buddhist

studies in Japan, which was dominated at the time by dogmatics. Keiki Yabuki

(1879–1939) is another noteworthy Buddhist scholar who introduced religious

studies into Buddhist studies under Anesaki’s influence.

The second generation of scholars of religion was led by two sociologists

and ethnologists of religion, EnkUno (1885–1949) and ChijÿAkamatsu

(1886–1960), along with a historian of religion specializing in the Old Testa-

ment, Chishin Ishibashi (1886–1947), whose idea of ‘Heil-seeking’, that is,

seeking salvation and well-being (from German Heil), as the essence of religion

was sharply criticized by Uno. These scholars were then followed by a folklorist,

Toshiaki Harada (1893–1983) (1942), a sociologist and ethnologist of religion,

Kiyoto Furuno (1899–1979), a philosopher of religion, Teruji Ishizu (1903–

1972), and a Kyoto school philosopher of religion, Keiji Nishitani (1900–1990)

(1982).

Institutionalization

In 1930 the Japanese Association for Religious Studies was founded, the first

nationwide academic organization in the field. At that time there were strong

anti-religious movements inspired by Marxism, which was one of the social

causes that led scholars of religion to unite to defend religion. Its committee

was formed by members from eighteen universities with either departments or

programs of religion, most of which have remained central to religious studies

in Japan until today. Five of them were national universities, while seven out

of the thirteen private universities were Buddhist and two Christian. The first

meeting was held at Tokyo Imperial University in order to celebrate the twenty-

fifth anniversary of religious studies in Japan. The second meeting, which

became the first substantial conference in size and in style, took place at Taishÿ

University, a Buddhist liberal arts college, in 1932.

Among the thirteen private universities, TaishÿUniversity provides a good

example of the manner in which religious universities embraced religious studies.

In 1896 Anesaki delivered a lecture at this university, then called Jÿdosh

Kÿtÿgakuin, on ‘Religious Studies (shkyÿgaku)’,^18 two years before he offered

a lecture with the same title at Tokyo Imperial University. Developing from

traditional Buddhist seminaries, TaishÿUniversity was formally established in

1926 by uniting four different Buddhist sectarian institutions. This origin reflects

a Buddhist ecumenical movement which emerged during the Taishÿera

(1912–1926), called the period of the free spirit of democracy. At the university

the Department of Religious Studies was set up independently of that of

Buddhist Studies. It advanced the study of Buddhism in the manner of Anesaki,

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SATOKO FUJIWARA