Hara Tanzan, Yoshitani Kakuju, and the academization of Buddhist studies
Abstract This essay explores how Japanese Buddhist Studies as an academic discipline emerged from its pre-modern scholastic heritage. It focuses on the Zen monk Hara Tanzan (1819-1892) and the Jōdo shinshū cleric Yoshitani Kakuju (1843-1923), the first two lecturers on Buddhism at Tokyo University...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Chapter/Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2023
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| In: |
Learning from the West, learning from the East
Year: 2023, Pages: 126-152 |
| DOI: | 10.1163/9789004681071_005 |
| Online Access: | Resolving-System, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004681071_005 Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://brill.com/edcollchap/book/9789004681071/BP000004.xml 
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| Author Notes: | Stephan Kigensan Licha |
| Summary: | Abstract This essay explores how Japanese Buddhist Studies as an academic discipline emerged from its pre-modern scholastic heritage. It focuses on the Zen monk Hara Tanzan (1819-1892) and the Jōdo shinshū cleric Yoshitani Kakuju (1843-1923), the first two lecturers on Buddhism at Tokyo University. Both men saw themselves confronted with similar problems rooted in Tokyo University’s Westernized and secularized understanding of education and scholarship. The academic timetable allotted the study of Buddhism a mere two years, insufficient to convey a traditional scholastic curriculum. Furthermore, Hara and Kakuju had to teach not their own sects’ doctrines, but rather a generalized “Buddhism.” Finally, Tokyo University students demanded Western, scientific knowledge. Hara and Yoshitani addressed these problems through a similar strategy: Taking as their model Western science and philosophy, they sought to put Buddhist Studies on a firm epistemological and methodological foundation. Hara sought to explain Buddhism along physiological terms, while Yoshitani sought to establish it upon first principles. This generalized Buddhism, the paper concludes, represents a link between Buddhist denominations’ own educational efforts and the establishment of secularized Buddhist Studies in the Japanese academy. |
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| Item Description: | Gesehen am 25.09.2023 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| ISBN: | 9789004681071 9004681078 |
| DOI: | 10.1163/9789004681071_005 |