262 CHAPTER TENindependence from the Confucian ideologues who had previously supported
them. In 1868 they restored the imperial system by bringing the Meiji em-
peror to power.
10.8 State Shinto in Control (1868-1945)
The Shinto forces behind the Meiji restoration were initially hostile to Bud-
dhism, viewing it as a decadent foreign influence that had polluted the origi-
nal purity of Japanese culture and prevented the modernization of the Japanese
state. After passing a law separating Buddhism and Shinto, the new govern-
ment pursued an active policy of persecuting Buddhists, denouncing their tra-
ditions, expropriating temple lands, and converting Buddhist temples into
Shinto shrines. A decree went out that Buddhist monks of all sects should be
allowed to marry; at the same time, the monks were pressed into service to
teach the new state religion-State Shinto-throughout the countryside. Only
the intervention of a foreign businessman saved Prince Shotoku's Horyu-ji
(see Section 10.2) from being turned into kindling wood for a public bath.
The anti-Buddhist fervor peaked in 1871, after which it became clear that the
policy of outright suppression was proving counterproductive. Some of the
policies were dismantled-monks no longer had to propagate Shinto-but the
decree allowing marriage stuck. At present, there are very few celibate monks
in Japan except for young men in training, although the nuns' orders have
maintained their celibate vows.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the state mounted an expan-
sionist, militaristic policy that was to lead Japan into a long string of wars: the
Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), the an-
nexation ofKorea (1910), World War I, and the invasion of Manchuria fol-
lowed by World War II. This new national mission provided the context in
which a new generation of Buddhist scholars-mostly educated in the institu-
tions ofWestern learning established by the Meiji government-began a con-
certed effort to reclaim Buddhism's place in Japanese culture. To do so,
however, they had to redefine the Buddhist tradition in such a way that would
make it respectable, not only to Japanese nationalists, but also to the younger
generation educated in Western rationalism and science. In a way, the Japanese
redefinition of Buddhism in the light ofWestern thought was simply one in-
stance of a trend sweeping throughout Asian Buddhism, but its imperialistic
overtones gave it a tenor quite unlike anything else that was happening in
Asian Buddhism at the time.
Borrowing principles from the European Enlightenment (see Section
12.2), the proponents of shin bukkyo (New Buddhism) distinguished the
monastic institutional form of Buddhism from its original and pure principles.
Contemporary Japanese Buddhist institutions, they conceded, were decadent
and corrupt, but the original principles of the religion were consonant with
modern ideals-humanistic, cosmopolitan, and socially responsible-that