take an instance, Noriyoshi Tamaru (b. 1931) proposed ‘the philosophy of
religious studies’, which meant critical reflections upon the presuppositions of
the theories of religious studies (Tamaru 1977).
On the other hand, some scholars took an interest in the phenomenology
of religion and even called their approaches phenomenological, for example,
Tsuneya Wakimoto (b. 1921), Kiyoshi Øhata (1904–1983), Masahiro
Kusunoki (b. 1921), Toshimaro Hanazono (b. 1936), Minoru Sonoda (b. 1936),
and Shinji Kanai (b. 1942), but most of them have never been opposed to
the Kishimotoian empirical approach. In other words, there has never
been anything comparable to the Western contention between ‘sui generis
religionists’ and ‘reductionists’. Along with phenomenologists, sociologists of
religion have adopted an approach geared to ‘understanding’. Moreover, what
was meant by the term ‘phenomenology’ (genshÿgaku) varied from scholar to
scholar, encompassing such diverse enterprises as typology, cross-cultural
comparison, a synthetic approach, an interpretive approach, and Husserlian
philosophy. The Eliadean history of religions was introduced in the 1960s and
was expanded by Michio Araki (b. 1938), a graduate of the University of
Chicago.
Among the empirical studies of religion, the psychology of religion was
initially most popular, but it was soon replaced by the sociology of religion.
Fujio Ikado (b. 1924) specialized in North American religions and introduced
secularization theory, developing his own theory of secularization from a
comparative perspective. The study of new religious groups was promoted
by Shigeyoshi Murakami (1928–1991), Yoshio Yasumaru (b. 1934) (1979),
Hiroshi Kozawa (b. 1937) and others, and was then advanced remarkably by
Shigeru Nishiyama (b. 1942), Susumu Shimazono (b. 1948), Nobutaka Inoue
(b. 1948), Michihito Tsushima (b. 1949), and many more. The study of the
relationships between religion and politics, including the scientific analysis of
the pre-war State Shintÿsystem, was pursued by Shigeyoshi Murakami (1980),
Yoshiya Abe (1937–2003), Koremaru Sakamoto (b. 1950), Tsuyoshi Nakano
(b. 1947), and others.
The post-war ethnologists and folklorists of religion are represented by Ichirÿ
Hori (1910–1974), the author of Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and
Change(1968), Hitoshi Miyake (b. 1933), a specialist in shugendÿ(mountain
religions) (Miyake 2001), TokutarÿSakurai (1970 [1991]) and Kÿkan Sasaki
(b. 1930), specialists in shamanism, ShinjÿTakenaka (1913–1992) and Masao
Fujii (b. 1934), specialists in Buddhist rituals. More sociologically trained were
Keiichi Yanagawa (1976, 1991) and one of his students, Minoru Sonoda
(1975), both of whom worked on matsuri, mainly Shintÿfestivals. Yanagawa
was an influential scholar with wide interests at the Department of Religious
Studies of Tokyo University. Hirochika Nakamaki (b. 1947) is an anthropol-
ogist of religion who has been working on Japanese religion in Latin America
and ‘company religion’ in contemporary Japan (Nakamaki 2003).206
SATOKO FUJIWARA