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disassociation of kami and buddhas. In the early Meiji period the
Hakone intendant laicized, took the name Hakone Tarō, and became
the head shrine priest. The former temple precinct and temple build-
ings were turned over to him as possessions, but he eventually sold
them off to other laymen (Tsuji 1983, 590–91).
Furthermore, as a result of the Meiji Restoration, temples lost much
of their land and stipends. In 1871, temples with land awarded by
decree of the shogunate (goshuin ) saw those holdings turned
into public land; however, they were granted permission to use the
confiscated land free of charge in 1876 (Moriyama 1973, 701, 704; Har-
dacre 2002, 157). In the eleventh month of 1872, the Meiji authorities
ordered that temples without abbots or parishes were to be abolished
and clerics were prohibited from almsbegging (Miyake 2006, 48).
Temples with sizable funeral parishes were able to separate them-
selves from their roles as shrine administrators. Unfortunately, not all
Shingon temples had sufficient funeral parishes. Japanese historians
assume that an early modern cleric would have needed about a hun-
dred to one hundred and fifty households to sustain himself (Hardacre
2002, 42; Matsushita 1984b, 202). According to Tamamuro Fumio’s
analysis of a national head-branch temple register (1870–1871) in
the Shaji torishirabe ruisan, Shingon temples in the Sakura domain
(Shimōsa province) had parish averages of 42.1 households, far fewer
than the 96.7 households of an average Jōdoshin temple, 63.1 of a
Nichiren temple, or 56.7 of a Sōtō temple. Even though the Shingon
schools averaged larger parishes in some domains (for example, 81.6
households in the Fukuyama domain, Bingo province), they were gen-
erally smaller (such as in the Takada domain, Echigo province, and in
the Kumamoto domain, Higo province).
Tamamuro concludes that this indicates that despite the large num-
ber of Shingon temples, the Shingon schools did not fare well because
their temples were barely sustainable. He suggests that with such small
parishes, clerics could not have survived on the fees for funerals alone
but must have supplemented their income through farming and cul-
tivation. He also argues that in addition to losing income from the
administration of shrines, Shingon temples also lost their function
as facilitators of the Mt. Kōya pilgrimage confraternities, due to the
decline of the pilgrimage during the early Meiji period. This led to
further revenue loss (Tamamuro 2006, 13–15, 17).
Meiji Restoration policies not only invented Shintō and Buddhism
as independent traditions by forcing institutions and clerics to identify