Religious Studies: A Global View

neighboring fields began only after World War II. The related field most worth

mentioning here is Japanese folklore studies, founded by Kunio Yanagita

(1875–1962). He worked mostly outside the establishment, and in extensive

works he salvaged folk beliefs and practices in the provinces throughout Japan

that were marginalized and fading in the face of modernization. He inspired

a scholar of Japanese literature, Shinobu Origuchi (1887–1953), who also

became a central figure of folklore studies at a Shintÿuniversity, Kokugakuin.

Kumagusu Minakata (1867–1941), another friend of Yanagita, is a unique

scholar with abundant experiences of studying abroad, who combined folklore

studies with natural history and other natural scientific studies.

Developments since 1945

Major ideas and problems

With the end of World War II, it was publicly admitted that State Shintÿwas,

indeed, a ‘religion’. The ShintÿDirective, which specified the occupation policy

on religion, was issued in 1945 to abolish the entire system of State Shintÿ.

At the same time, the divine root of the imperial family was demythologized

to allow a democracy to be established. In the post-war period the influence

of the United States became immense, both politically and culturally. It was

ironic, therefore, that many Japanese remained skeptical of religion throughout

the Cold War, despite their living on the other side of the Communist bloc.

Traumatic memories of religious totalitarianism influenced the Japanese to

separate religion rigidly from politics, to an extent that they often feel

uncomfortable about the religious aspect of US politics, often called the civil

religion of America.

Under these circumstances, the scholars of religion in post-war Japan became

more careful to maintain scientific neutrality than had been the pre-war

scholars, who were socially engaged in defending religion. This neutral attitude

culminated in the work of Hideo Kishimoto (1903–1964), a leading post-war

scholar who sharply contrasted religious studies as a purely empirical science

both with theology and the philosophy of religion. Yet it does not mean that

the post-war study of religion had no meta-empirical perspectives. Many

scholars took an interest in minor, or what are called ‘little’, religious traditions,

the religions of the populace, whereas pre-war scholars more often investigated

religious elites. This tendency reflected the politically liberal atmosphere that

spread through humanities and social sciences in the 1950s. It was also a result

of differentiating the study of religion itself from studies of Buddhist, Shintÿ,

or Christian religions that focused on textual studies and elitist traditions. It

may also be true that cross-religious categories such as folk religion were more

suited to comprehending the syncretic pluralism of Japanese religions. Further-

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SATOKO FUJIWARA