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Abstract
The idea that Japanese Buddhism is in a state of inevitable decline is widely accepted by scholars, clerics, and journalists as both demographic fact and doctrinal truth. However, this analysis fails to capture the complicated dynamic between the longstanding narrative of decline and the equally longstanding reality of Buddhist survival. Using animated music videos, plastic figurines, and illustrated merchandise created in collaboration between the for-profit company Hachifuku and the small Tokyo temple Ryōhōji as examples of a broader trend, this article shows that the very things that are taken as evidence of Buddhist decline – crass materialism, raging lust, and blissful ignorance of the finer points of doctrine – are actually the things that allow Buddhism to survive and thrive in contemporary Japan. I conclude with a critical analysis of the political economy of the decline narrative, showing that religious studies scholars, mass media, and Japanese ecclesial institutions all benefit from a story that is only provisionally true.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Orion Klautau, Levi McLaughlin, Matthew McMullen, Ti Ngo, and Erik Schicketanz for early conversations on Ryōhōji. I am also indebted to students and faculty at North Carolina State University, Bates College, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Pennsylvania – not to mention organizer Brent Plate and the participants in the National University of Singapore workshop on which this special issue is based – for their thought-provoking responses to this material. Thanks as well to fellow panelists and audience participants at the 2014 American Academy of Religion panel on Buddhism and capitalism, and to editor Emma Varvaloucas for an invitation to publish a “teaser” piece on Ryōhōji in the summer 2015 issue of Tricycle. Ryōhōji resident priest Nakazato Nichikō graciously responded to my questions when I visited in December 2012, and Muroi Atsushi kindly granted permission to use Hachifuku’s proprietary images in this paper. Kimberley Thomas and John Whalen-Bridge helped think through a series of crucial revisions in 2014 and 2015.
Notes
1. In very early Buddhist texts “skillful means” referred to the Buddha’s masterful ability to teach people according to their idiosyncratic needs. With the rise of Mahāyāna Buddhism around the first century ce, scriptures such as the Lotus sūtra introduced a change. The Lotus – perhaps the most influential Buddhist scripture in East Asia and the primary scripture of Ryōhōji’s Nichiren sect – presented itself as “real” against the “provisional” teachings of earlier ages (Stone and Teiser Citation2009; Groner and Stone 2014). This interpretive move was vividly brought to life in the famous parable of the burning house in which a father (the Buddha) tricks his distracted sons into leaving a burning building (a metaphor for saṃsāra: the cycle of birth and rebirth) by promising them three types of toys that do not actually exist. Used to justify the teaching of the “real” one vehicle over the provisional teachings of the three vehicles (arhat, pratyekabuddha, buddha), the doctrine of expedient means also legitimated the use of falsehoods (provisional distortions of conventional truth) as reasonable methods for leading ignorant humans to emancipation (ultimate truth).
2. Nichiren (1222–1282), the founder of the Nichiren sect, advocated exclusive devotion to the Lotus sūtra. He suggested that his followers adopt two methods for bringing people to this practice: Shakubuku was a method of fierce remonstration that demanded immediate conversion on the part of those who actively slandered the Lotus; shōju (“to embrace and accept”) was a method of benevolent enticement that lured those who were ignorant of the Lotus to veneration of it (Stone Citation1994; Stone 1999a).
3. “Cosplay” is an abbreviation of the words “costume play.”.
4. KissYouTen is a creative transliteration of the goddess’s name. Kichijōten is famous as a beautiful goddess of wealth who sometimes uses her feminine allure to bring people to the dharma; several classical Japanese tales depict hapless priests who fall in love (and sometimes have sexual relations with) Kichijōten.
5. The opening shot of the videos for this program focuses on a temporary tattoo of ToroBenten on a young woman’s arm, then switches to another woman provocatively displaying the same temporary tattoo on her left breast. The soundtrack begins with traditional Buddhist percussion used for chanting sūtras, then fades into the background music of Tera Zukkyun.
6. See a gameplay demonstration video here: https://youtu.be/FyViJr7_I3c.
7. The video is available at http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/mikata/backnumber/100226.html. Japanese only; last accessed 27 September 2014.
8. Anonymous 2012.
9. The temple’s website is divided into a splashy half characterized by the anime aesthetic, media widgets, and links to Ryōhōji-themed goods, on the one hand; on the other, a staid portion of the site provides solemn announcements about events in the annual ritual calendar.
10. I use the pronoun “he” here because the campaign seems to be primarily targeted towards heterosexual males.
11. See Kaminishi Citation2006, Kimbrough Citation2006, and Reider Citation2009 for examples of combinations of text and image that promoted religious sites and ideas and were targeted to lay audiences in premodern contexts.
12. See Ambros Citation2008 on the crucial role of oshi pilgrimage promoters and guides in the early modern period, and Reader Citation2007 on contemporary media representations of pilgrimage on Japanese national television.
13. Just as popular pilgrimage routes were once recreated in facsimile in other parts of Japan in the past (MacWilliams Citation1997), non-temple spaces such as convention halls and virtual spaces such as video games can serve as provisional sites for connecting with the temple in the present.
14. The record label Ahōdera ア法寺 is a play on Ryōhōji’s name 了法寺. It replaces the Chinese character 了 – ryō – with a derivative character, ア – ah – used in the katakana Japanese syllabary, maintains the sinophone reading of 法 (hō, dharma/law), and replaces the sinophone reading of the character for “temple” (ji) with the Japanese reading (tera). The word “ahō” is Japanese slang for “fool.” Thus, “Foolish Temple Records.”.
15. Japanese onomatopoeia comes in two varieties: giongo represent sounds, while gitaigo represent actions, sensations, and emotional states. Kyun is of the latter type.
16. See Saitō Citation2011 on otaku sexuality and the otaku’s ability to direct genuine sexual attraction to fictive characters while simultaneously inhabiting multiple fictive worlds along with the “real.”
17. Reader (Citation2011, Citation2012), for example, privileges the first-person accounts of clerics, who have a vested interest in having scholars buy in to their version of the decline narrative.