Essay name: Theravada Buddhist studies in Japan
Author:
Keiko Soda
Affiliation: University of Calcutta / Department of Pali
This essay studies the acceptance of Buddhism in Japanese culture and nature, in light of the concept of 鈥淚mpermanence鈥�. The history of Japanese Buddhism traces its origins from its introduction through Korea, evolving significantly over various periods.
Chapter 1 - The history of Japanese Buddhism
11 (of 46)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
Download the PDF file of the original publication
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
2
-; 10 :-
Gradually in Japan, Buddhism became the State
religion. But it was difficult for the ordinary people
to understand the teaching of Buddhism. It is generally
accepted that Japanese people have a religious spirit
which is under a spell. They have a very strong belief
that there exists a soul of a dead person and the living
person can speak to him. For the people, the most fear-
ful thing is the dead body. In Shintoism this is
avoided.
So in Shintoism there can not be the salva-
tion of a soul of a dead person. When Buddhist spread
over Japan, the Buddhist monks were not afraid of them,
as Buddhism preached the salvation of all.
In the old Japanese society it was believed that
there were souls of animals and trees.
蝉贸耻濒
In the Buddhist
tradition, they are also turning the sentient beings.
Buddhism involved Shint艒ism to get such souls into
Buddhism. Many wandering sages spread Buddhism staying
at shrines.
At
It is an important point that Buddhism was combined
with the faith for the high mountains from the ancient
time in Japan. They were afraid of climbing them.
the same time, they believed the souls of the ancestors
gathered in such holy mountains. When Buddhism spread
over Japan the Buddhist monks went into the holy mountains
for their practices. Such a custom to practice in the
i
I
I
