government further developed its policy of disestab-
lishing Buddhism in 1871 and 1872.
Japanese Buddhists offered their services to the gov-
ernment in order to soften the ongoing persecution.
They tried to prove Buddhism’s value by supporting
national policies. Japanese Buddhists claimed that Bud-
dhism was the indigenous religious practice of Japan
and that the Japanese version of the religion was the
consummation of all previous developments within
Asian Buddhism. They also promoted Buddhism as a
way to defend their nation against the incursions of
Christianity. Along with growing nationalist senti-
ments, they identified themselves as protectors of
Japanese tradition against the encroachments of West-
ern culture, including Christianity.
Korean Buddhists developed their sense of national
identity around the turn of the twentieth century, be-
ginning with the opening of the nation to the Western
world in 1876 and the subsequent colonization by
Japan in 1910. Awakened by the influx of Western
modernity, and threatened by the rapid growth of
Christianity and Japanese Buddhism on the peninsula,
Korean Buddhists developed a sense of their own in-
dependent identity. They attempted to present Bud-
dhism as a source of national identity by identifying it
as the backbone of Korean history and culture. They
began to consolidate their own identity as distinct from
that of Japanese Buddhists, in particular, and to write
their own history.
Overall, Buddhist nationalism arose in response to
the influx of Western civilization. Buddhists presented
the religion as being useful to the nation and reclaimed
its status as a traditional religion, in opposition to the
imported Christian traditions of the West.
The problematic nature of Buddhist nationalism
For an understanding of Buddhist nationalism, how-
ever, a more nuanced approach is needed. When the
ethnicity of the rulers was the same as that of the
governed, Buddhist nationalism posed no difficul-
ties. Japanese Buddhists, for instance, became faith-
ful followers of state policies, identifying themselves
with the nation-state. By the mid-Meiji period, Bud-
dhism managed to present itself as the essence of
Japanese culture. Buddhist leaders actively joined the
state’s military policies. They endorsed and rational-
ized imperial policies during the Sino-Japanese War
(1894) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904). They
sent war missionaries to the battlefields to comfort
soldiers. They also organized the Buddhist Society
for the Defense of the Nation during World War I
and became involved in the state’s war effort during
the Pacific War.
In contrast, Buddhists under colonial governments
displayed confusing behaviors in their development of
nationalism. The Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka, for ex-
ample, pursued formal recognition from, and the pa-
tronage of, the colonial government. They asked
persistently for state intervention in the maintenance
and supervision of Buddhist temporalities. Kitsiri
Malalgoda suggests that these ties with foreign rulers
account for the fact that the Sinhala Buddhist revival
movements did not develop into a concerted move-
ment for national independence. The Chinese SAN ̇GHA
also showed ambivalence when their religious interests
and national interests diverged. Chinese monasteries
voluntarily subjected themselves to Japanese Buddhist
schools to protect their property. They rushed to reg-
ister their monasteries with major Japanese Buddhist
denominations to solicit protection from the Japanese
consulate. The Chinese san ̇gha was accused of collab-
orating with the Japanese after the Japanese com-
menced a campaign of military conquest in 1937.
During the colonial period, the Korean Buddhist
san ̇gha also maintained close ties with the Japanese
regime, seeking favors from it. The majority of Korean
Buddhist leaders tacitly or overtly acquiesced to the
Japanese policy of “Japan and Korea Are One Entity,”
which aimed to eradicate Korean identity. Some Ko-
rean monks gave lectures in support of the Japanese
war effort during the 1940s and even made consola-
tory visits to the Japanese imperial army, submitting
to the demands of the Japanese regime.
The political ambivalence and impotence of Bud-
dhists resulted in liaisons with those in power, no
matter who they were. Japanese Buddhists followed im-
perialist policies out of their collective interest in pro-
tecting their establishments and in consonance with
their traditional subservience to political authority. The
san ̇gha’s traditional dependence on the ruling court
produced further confusion among Sinhala, Chinese,
and Korean Buddhists. This ambivalence toward the
state attests to the complexity of Buddhist nationalism.
This complexity derives partly from the fact that the
concept of nation is unstable and a source of con-
tention. There are many different versions of nation
and nationalism,such as the nation-state and the “eth-
nic nation.” Japanese Buddhists identified the state
with nation, faithfully supporting its policies. In com-
parison, Sri Lanka developed its own version of nation,NATIONALISM ANDBUDDHISM