particularly German, institutions began to be founded in
Japan. While there were a number of private universities,
some of which had either Buddhist or Christian back-
grounds, a few national universities were granted a leading
position in research and teaching. In 1890 Tetsujiro ̄ Inoue
(1855–1944) delivered a lecture on comparative religion and
Eastern philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University, Japan’s
first national university. In 1905 Masaharu Anesaki (1873–
1949) was appointed to the first professorship in religious
studies at the university, and the first department for the
study of religion was established. Other national universities,
which were independent of any religious organization, fol-
lowed suit. The early scholars emphasized the importance of
free inquiry and a comparative approach.
Nevertheless, their scholarly research was guided by sig-
nificant practical concerns alongside the scientific ideal of
objectivity. The fundamental question about the nature of
religion had been evoked in the debate on the legitimacy of
State Shinto ̄, and the public came to expect scholars of reli-
gion not only to offer a professional definition of religion but
also to present a blueprint for religion’s future. Their recom-
mendations varied. Inoue supported the Imperial rescript on
education in the debate. His goal was to replace all religions
with national morality and rational philosophy. He believed
that existing religions would become outdated in the process
of modernization.
While rationalist scholars such as Inoue thought that so-
ciety would ultimately be able to dispense with religion, most
scholars of religion, including Anesaki, hoped to secure the
role of religion in contemporary and future society. They
therefore defended religion against modern secularism. Still,
it was self-evident to almost all of them that religion could
serve to consolidate and expand their new nation-state, and
in that aspect of national loyalty they were not much differ-
ent from right-wing nationalists who promoted the Imperial
rescript on education.
In this process of describing religion in comparison to
other categories such as education and morality, they came
to presuppose the sui generis quality of religion, and different
scholars presented various universal definitions of religion,
which were also assumed to be its origin. Their views of reli-
gion can be described, overall, as psycho- or subject-centered.
For example, Manshi Kiyozawa (1863–1903) defined reli-
gion as “a mental faculty or disposition which enables man
to apprehend the Infinite” (in The Skeleton of Philosophy of
Religion, an essay in English distributed to attendees at the
World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893).
Many Japanese scholars, even those with religious affilia-
tions, regarded the divine being as a projection of human
feelings, desires, or life forces. Interestingly, they did not
think that such views would undermine religion. They were
in fact optimistic about religion, believing in its evolution.
Although these tendencies were distinct, it is difficult to dis-
cern how many of them were derived from their contempo-
rary Western thoughts or from the indigenous tradition of
Buddhism or animistic Shinto ̄.
Twenty-five years after the first department for the
study of religion was established, The Japanese Association
for Religious Studies was founded, the first nationwide aca-
demic organization in the field. At that time there were
strong antireligious movements inspired by Marxism, which
was one of the causes that led scholars of religion to unite
to defend religion. During the same period Japan became an
imperialistic power and started to expand its colonies from
Korea to other parts of Asia. In a parallel to Western scholar-
ship, Japanese scholars developed ethnographic studies based
on fieldwork in the new colonies in Asia, aware that studying
the religions of diverse ethnic groups would serve Japan’s co-
lonial policy. It is often pointed out that the Kyoto School,
the well-known group of religious philosophers from Kyoto
Imperial University, justified Japanese imperialism with their
ideas of Buddhism as postmodern, post-Western wisdom.
Scholars of religion who supported Japanese imperialism
ideologically were not limited to the Kyoto School, however.
Moreover, many scholars found their freedom of research
being increasingly restricted.
DEVELOPMENTS SINCE 1945. With the end of the Second
World War, it was publicly admitted that State Shinto ̄ was,
indeed, a religion. The Shinto ̄ Directive, which specified the
occupation policy on religion, was issued in 1945 to abolish
the entire system of State Shinto ̄. At the same time the impe-
rial family was demythologized to allow a democracy to be
established. In the postwar period the influence of the Unit-
ed States became immense, both politically and culturally.
It was ironic, therefore, that many Japanese remained skepti-
cal about religion throughout the Cold War, despite their
living in a capitalistic society. Traumatic memories of reli-
gious totalitarianism continue to influence the Japanese to
separate religion from politics, to an extent that they often
feel uncomfortable about the religious aspect of U.S. politics,
often called the civil religion of the United States. In addi-
tion, opinion polls indicate that a large number of Japanese
have a strong distrust of any religious organization.Under these circumstances, the scholars of religion in
postwar Japan became more careful to maintain scientific
neutrality than had been the prewar scholars, who were so-
cially engaged in defending religion. This neutral attitude
culminated in the work of Hideo Kishimoto (1903–1964),
a leading postwar scholar who sharply contrasted the study
of religion as a purely empirical science with the study of the-
ology. It does not mean that the postwar study of religion
had no perspectives. Many scholars took an interest in
minor, or what are called “little,” religious traditions, the re-
ligions of the populace, whereas prewar scholars more often
investigated the religious elites. This new tendency reflected
the politically liberal atmosphere that spread through the hu-
manities and social sciences in the 1950s. It was also a result
of differentiating the study of religion itself from studies of
Buddhist, Shinto ̄, or Christian religions that focused on tex-
tual studies and elitist traditions. It may also be true that
cross-religious categories like folk religion were more suitedSTUDY OF RELIGION: THE ACADEMIC STUDY OF RELIGION IN JAPAN 8777