Strickmann, Michel. “The Consecration Sutra: A Buddhist Book
of Spells.” In Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha,ed. Robert E.
Buswell. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990.
Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: Le bouddhisme
tantrique en Chine.Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
RONALDM. DAVIDSON
INOUE ENRYO
Inoue Enryo(1858–1919) was an Otani-branch Jodo
Shin philosopher and educator. Born into a Jodo Shin
family in Japan’s Niigata region, Inoue eventually stud-
ied philosophy with Ernest Fenollosa, graduating with
a degree in that subject from Tokyo Imperial Univer-
sity in 1885. Inoue was highly critical of the Buddhist
clergy of his day and decided that the best way to work
for the revitalization of Buddhism in Japan was as a
layman. He renounced his status as a Shin cleric in the
late 1880s.
Inoue was convinced that philosophy was the key
to understanding absolute truth and that Buddhism,
properly understood, was consonant with both West-
ern philosophical and modern scientific understand-
ings of the world. To promote the study of
philosophy, particularly his Hegelian-tinged, Bud-
dhist philosophical rationalism, Inoue founded the
Tetsugakukan (Academy of Philosophy; later Toyo
University) in 1887. An ardent nationalist and oppo-
nent to Christianity in Japan, Inoue was a vigorous
apologist for Buddhism. Inoue argued that Buddhism
provided the best ideological support for moderniz-
ing the Japanese nation-state and served as a bulwark
against Western missionaries, offering its emotional
dimension (the Pure Land traditions) to the masses
and its profound intellectual facets (Tendai and
Kegon thought) to the elite.
In an effort to uplift those he viewed as the igno-
rant masses (gumin) and combat Christian missionary
influence, Inoue promoted various Buddhist social re-
form activities, including the founding of orphanages,
reform schools, and hospitals, as well as more active
proselytization efforts by Buddhist organizations. Ever
the rationalist, Inoue also embarked on an ambitious
project to catalogue and analyze numerous accounts
of supernatural phenomena throughout Japan with an
eye to debunking empirically the supernatural tales
that loomed large in Japanese popular culture.
See also:Meiji Buddhist Reform; Philosophy
Bibliography
Figal, Gerald. Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in
Meiji Japan.Durham, NC, and London: Duke University
Press, 1999.
Snodgrass, Judith. “The Deployment of Western Philosophy in
the Meiji Buddhist Revival.” Eastern Buddhist30/2 (1997):
173–198.RICHARDM. JAFFEINTERMEDIATE STATESIntermediate state (Sanskrit, antarabhava; Chinese,
zhongyou; Tibetan, bardo) is the interim between death
and the next birth. The term refers both to the post-
mortem state of transition and to the subtle entity that
abides in that state. During the early period of Bud-
dhism in India, the status of the intermediate state be-
tween lives was a subject of some controversy. The
doctrine was not accepted by some early Buddhist
schools, including the THERAVADA, Vibhajyavada,
MAHASAMGHIKA, and MAHIS ́ASAKA. The schools that
accepted some version of the theory were the Sar-
vastivada, SAUTRANTIKA, Sammitiya, Purvas ́aila, and
Darstantika.
The doctrinal controversy is described briefly in the
Kathavatthu(Points of Controversy) of Moggaliputta
Tissa (second century B.C.E.). There the problem fo-
cuses on how to properly interpret the expression
“completed existence within the interval” (antara-
bhavupagam). Some argued that this phrase referred
to the existence of an actual intermediate period be-
tween death and rebirth. Others held that such an in-
termediate period was never taught explicitly by the
Buddha and thus does not exist. According to oppo-
nents of the intermediate state doctrine, since the Bud-
dha taught that there are only three realms of
existence—desire (kamadhatu), form (rupadhatu), and
formlessness (arupadhatu)—an intermediary realm
cannot be accepted as valid. Even proponents of the
doctrine were not always in agreement as to how this
intervening realm should best be understood. There
were a number of detailed early doctrinal expositions
of the intermediate state written in India, such as the
second-century compilation Mahavibhasa(Great Ex-
egisis), a Sarvastivada ABHIDHARMAcommentary. VA-
SUBANDHUcodified the doctrine in his fifth-century
ABHIDHARMAKOS ́ABHASYA,and this became the stan-
dard presentation and subsequently the basic model
adopted in East Asia and Tibet.INTERMEDIATESTATES