Neither Monk Nor Layman

by Jaffe, Richard M.

• ISBN13: 9780691074955
• ISBN10: 069107495X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-02-04
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Buddhism comes in many forms, but in Japan it stands apart from all the rest in one most striking way--the monks get married. InNeither Monk nor Layman, the most comprehensive study of this topic in any language, Richard Jaffe addresses the emergence of an openly married clergy as a momentous change in the history of modern Japanese Buddhism. He demonstrates, in clear and engaging prose, that this shift was not an easy one for Japanese Buddhists. Yet the transformation that began in the early Meiji period (1868-1912)--when monks were ordered by government authorities to adopt common surnames and allowed to marry, to have children, and to eat meat--today extends to all the country's Buddhist denominations. Jaffe traces the gradual acceptance of clerical marriage by Japanese Buddhists from the premodern emergence of the "clerical marriage problem" in the Edo period to its widespread practice by the start of the Second World War. In doing so he considers related issues such as the dissolution of clerical status and the growing domestication of Japanese temple life. This book reveals the deep contradictions between sectarian teachings that continue to idealize renunciation and a clergy whose lives closely resemble those of their parishioners in modern Japanese society. It will attract not only scholars of religion and of Japanese history, but all those interested in the encounter-conflict between regimes of modernization and religious institutions and the fate of celibate religious practices in the twentieth century.

Table of Contents

Figures and Table	xi
Preface	xiii
Acknowledgments	xix
Reference Abbreviations	xxi
Ministries and Other Government Institutions	xxiii
Introduction	1	(8)
Pre-Meiji Precedents	9	(27)
Jodo Shin Buddhism and the Edo Period Debate over	36	(22)
Nikujiki Saitai
The Household Registration System and the Buddhist Clergy	58	(37)
Passage of the Nikujiki Saitai Law: The Clergy and the Formation of Meiji Buddhist Policy	95	(19)
Horses with Horns: The Attack on Nikujiki Saitai	114	(34)
Denominational Resistance and the Modification of Government Policy	148	(17)
Tanaka Chigaku and the Buddhist Clerical Marriage: Toward a Positive Appraisal of Family Life	165	(24)
The Aftermath: From Doctrinal Concern to Practical Problem	189	(39)
Almost Home	228	(15)
Glossary	243	(11)
Bibliography	254	(21)
Index	275