The Encyclopedia of World Religions

232 S Japanese religion

meant that the spiritual path between this and the invisible world is now fully opened and its power of salvation unleashed for the world. To receive that power, they taught a special form of guided meditation. A new religion that has been aggressively promoted is Kofuku no Kagaku (Science of Hap piness), based on the teachings of Ryuhu Okawa, who founded it in 1986. Believing himself to be a special revealer of God’s truth, Okawa taught that happiness stems from love, knowledge, develop ment, and self-reflection. He also taught that a world catastrophe is imminent, after which a uto pia will arise. Mahikari (Divine True Light) began in 1959. Its founder had been a member of the Church of World Messianity. Like the latter, it teaches a prac tice of radiating the divine light through the palm of one’s hand. The most notorious of the recent new religions is Aum Shinrikyo (Teaching of OM , the Divine Prin ciple), which was responsible for a deadly nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 under the direction of its leader, Shoko Asahara. He had founded the religion in 1984 to teach methods of Buddhist yoga and meditation. However, the fol lowers became a withdrawn, tightly knit commu nal group who anticipated a coming purifying event ( see APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE ), which they apparently thought the attack would precipitate. The instiga tors of the crime, including Asahara, were tried and convicted, but a remnant has kept the group alive, changing its name to Aleph. The tragedy led to much debate in Japan about new religions, even though no other new religion has perpetrated an offence of this magnitude. Some of the new religions of Japan have suc cessfully expanded overseas, especially among Japanese immigrants in Brazil and the United States. They have often served as envoys of Japa nese culture as well as religion. Further reading: Helen Hardacre, Lay Buddhism in Contemporary Japan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984); Robert Jay Lifton, Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo,

Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism (New York: Henry Holt, 2000); Harry Thomsen, The New Religions of Japan. (Tokyo and Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1963).

Japanese religion A religious complex com prised of S HINTO , various forms of B UDDHISM , and new religions plus elements of T AOISM , C ONFUCIAN ISM , and C HRISTIANITY . the religions of Japan are like a series of layers. New forms are added on top of older strata, but the old seem never to die out. Thus Japanese religion is a very complex mixture. Many Japanese have a relation to at least two religions, Shinto and Buddhism, and affirm the basic ethi cal principles of Confucianism without practicing it as a religion. Taoism and Christianity in nearly all its forms have also had influence in Japan, and in addition, a number of new religions have arisen in the 19th and 20th centuries. SHINTO The oldest layer or stratum is Shinto, which may be translated as the “Way of the Gods.” This reli gion represents a perpetuation of the religion of ancient and prehistoric Japan, when the society was divided into many clans, each of which had its own patronal deity. Some of these, together with other gods, are now the KAMI , or gods of Shinto, a polytheistic religion. This FAITH is now recogniz able by its distinctive torii or gateway, represent ing entry to its lovely shrines, and by its colorful matsuri, or festivals. BUDDHISM Buddhism came to Japan around the sixth cen tury C . E ., imported from Korea. It represented a more advanced level of culture than Japan had at the time, and with it came new arts and skills, including writing and even the Confucian classics, from the continent. Buddhism soon also became a faith by which the rulers of Japan tried to unify the nation, since it was not identified with any of the local clans. But though there was tension, Shinto did not disappear, as did the old religions of Europe around the same time as Christianity