Buddhism as an Object of Academic Inquiry in the Early Work of Ishikawa Shuntai (1842–1931)
In: Learning from the West, Learning from the East: The Emergence of the Study of Buddhism in Japan and Europe before 1900Search for other papers by Mick Deneckere in
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Abstract
Scholarship on the beginnings of the scientific study of religions in Japan traditionally holds that Shin cleric Ishikawa Shuntai (1842–1931) coined the term shūkyōgaku (the science of religions) in 1884. However, Shuntai’s use of the term in an essay published in the Buddhist journal Hōshi sōdan in 1875 propels the story back in time and invites us to reconsider the question of how the “science of religions” developed in Japan from as early as the 1870s, at a time when the discipline was still very new in Europe too. Meanwhile, Shuntai’s use of the French term “science des religions” asks for an investigation of the circumstances leading to the publication of his essay. Indeed, as a member of the Higashi Honganji Mission to Europe in the early 1870s, Shuntai had observed first-hand the religious situation of the West. By focusing on Shuntai’s background in Japan and his trip abroad, this chapter explores this little-known episode in the history of Japanese Buddhism. It furthermore looks at the contents of Shuntai’s essay and examines how and to what purpose Shuntai utilized the methods of “science des religions,” in search for answers to the question of the development of religion as an object of academic inquiry in early Meiji Japan.