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ABSTRACT
This article outlines the history of lotteries in Japan, why and how Buddhist temples used them to raise funds for temple repairs in the early modern period (c. 1600–1868), and the larger moral-economic debates in which they became embroiled. It shows that while lotteries are worth examining for their importance to the maintenance of Buddhist temples in the early modern period, their study also provides a window into the competing values and interests at play in Japan in the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. This affected how and when temples could use lotteries to raise funds and would eventually come to inform how modern scholars came to view Buddhism in early modern Japan. Attention to this kind of ‘politics of value,’ I suggest, might also provide useful insights for both historical and historiographical studies of religious fundraising in other times and places.
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Notes
1 On the interplay between religious fundraising strategies and changing economic thinking and practices more generally, see the introduction to this issue; on Buddhist fundraising more specifically, see also Caple and Roddy, who discuss monastic financing in contemporary Tibet, and Milligan on ancient Sri Lanka (both in this issue).
2 For an overview of Buddhism in early modern Japan, including a discussion of income and expenditures, see Hur Citation2000, 1-13; Hardacre Citation2002; Vesey Citation2003; Williams Citation2005; Mitchell Citation2016, esp. chapters 2 and 5.
3 Nam-Lin Hur’s (Citation2000) work provides an exception; he mentions temple lotteries as one aspect of the combination of prayer and play that held sway at large temples in the early modern period without making any judgement of the morality of the practice.
4 ‘Politics of value’ is most often associated with Arjun Appadurai, who states that ‘politics (in the broad sense of relations, assumptions, and contests pertaining to power) is what links value and exchange in the social lives of commodities’ (Citation1986, p. 57, emphasis in original). In this article, however, I am drawing on the work of David Graeber (Citation2001, Citation2013). Graeber critiques Appadurai’s economic approach as being a ‘neoliberal version’ of the ‘politics of value’, which ‘largely comes down to the story of how various elites try to control and limit exchange and consumption, while others (almost always popular forces) try to expand it, and with the social struggles that result’ (Citation2001, pg. 32). Graeber broadens the discussion of value beyond the simply economic; for him the ‘politics of value’ is ‘the struggle to establish what value is’ (Citation2001, p. 88, emphasis in original; see also Graeber Citation2013, p. 228). In this article I am discussing Graeber’s politics of value – the contestation of value which encompasses both the economic and the other-than-economic.
5 Following custom, Japanese names are written with the family name first followed by the personal name. When one name is used for a person, I will use their family name, except when there are two members of the same family (e.g. the Okuis, who were the lottery organizers for Aoyama Zenkōji’s lottery). This is not the common practice in Japanese historical writing (see, for example, Roberts Citation2012, pg. xiii), but I have adopted it here for consistency with other articles in this issue. Long vowels are indicated with a bar over the vowel (e.g., Hōsenji), except in cases where the word or place name is commonly known in English, such as Osaka.
6 Lotteries had existed in China since at least the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but seem to have fallen out of use in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries and were reintroduced through western trade in the nineteenth century. Given the gap between the supposed disappearance of lotteries in China and their emergence in Japan, it seems unlikely that Japanese lotteries in their early modern forms were directly imported from China. On lotteries in China, see Yang Citation1950.
7 Modern lotteries, which were legalized in Japan in the 1930s and 1940s, are called takurakuji.
8 Leupp gives this in koku of rice. Government policy set the exchange rate of 1 koku of rice at 1 gold ryō coin, though in actuality this rate fluctuated. I have used the government's rate to change the income given by Leupp into gold, though readers should understand that this may have varied based on actual exchange rates.
9 Local domains also issued their own paper money called hansatsu, but those were not used in official temple lotteries. Those interested in the currencies used in Japan / Japanese numismatics should visit the Bank of Japan’s Currency Museum, which has a detailed digital exhibit https://www.imes.boj.or.jp/cm/english/history/. For more on how merchants used and converted these currencies, see Suzuki Citation2021.
10 For example, lotteries at or held by Hōsenji, Kannōji, Ninnaji, Kuramadera, and Kōfukuji were held as Bishamonten (Skt. Vaiśravaṇa) lotteries, while at other temples they were held as Benzaiten (Skt. Saraswati) or Daikokuten (Skt. Mahākāla) lotteries (Takiguchi Citation2009, pp. 28-32, 47). On the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, see Graham Citation2007, pp. 109-115.
11 Tomitsuki kakushitomi, 1692. Cited in Koji ruien kankōkai, ed., Koji ruien hōritsubu v. 3, 48, pp. 76-77.
12 For more on the social changes and reforms of the early modern period, see Jansen Citation2002, esp. chapter 8.
13 For more on Daihongan’s process of receiving approval based on eighteenth century convent journal entries, which include relevant documents, see Takatsukasa Citation1976, pp. 309-312.
14 Andō Yūichirō (Citation2009, pp. 118-121) discusses Okui Sanroku and Rihei, but he draws from Takatsukasa’s work and gives no details of other temple lotteries they might have organized.
15 This is most likely what is now known as Sakaki Shrine in Taitō-ku. The ‘three great lotteries’ were held in Yanaka (Kannōji), Meguro (Hōsenji), and Yushima (Tenjin shrine), but areas around the Sumida River were also popular, including the various shrines and temples around Asakusa Sensōji, Ekōin, and Fukakawa’s Reiganji. See the Kanten kenbunki cited in Koji ruien kankōkai, ed., Koji ruien hōritsubu 3 48), p. 83.
16 I have been unable to locate the original text. Aoki (Citation1962, pp. 35-36) states that it appears in Kagetomi to iu koto ryūkō seshi koro in the Kōgai zeisetu, published in Kokusho kankōkaiban ‘Kinsei Fuzoku kenbunshū’ 4, p. 32. There is a section on Kagetomi (shadow lotteries) on p. 32, but the quote is unfortunately not there and I been unable to locate it elsewhere.
17 On the Sōbō kigen and Nakai’s thought more broadly, see Najita Citation1987, pp. 151–186, Hall Citation2008, pp. 642-643.
18 Of course, these Japanese scholars were not the only or the first observers to criticize the connection between Buddhism and money; on China, see e.g., Kieschnick Citation2003, pp. 9–14.
19 On how one group of scholars attempted to counter the discourses of degeneracy, see Ōkuwa Citation2003, pp. 7-8.
20 Here I am borrowing from Graeber (Citation2001, p. 88).
21 Graeber (Citation2001) and others (e.g. Ortiz Citation2013) argue that value in the economic sense is linked to value in the sociological or ethical sense. However, others argue for a distinction between the two. Lambek, for example states that economic value is relative and commensurable while ethical value is absolute and incommensurable (Citation2008), and that there is a difference between the ethical value of actions and the economic value of goods (Citation2013). See also Otto and Willerslev (Citation2013a, Citation2013b) for more on these debates.
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Matthew Mitchell
Matthew Mitchell is a scholar of religion in Japan who focuses on connections between religious institutions and laypeople. He is currently revising a monograph tentatively titled Beyond the Convent Walls, which examines gender and religion in the financial, legal, and social activities of the nuns of Zenkōji Daihongan’s convent in Japan’s early modern period (1550-1868).