Mind and Morality in Nineteenth-Century

·期刊原文
Mind and Morality in Nineteenth-Century
Japanese Religions: Misogi-Kyo and Maruyama-Kyo
By Janine Anderson Sawada
Philosophy East & West
V. 48 No. 1 (January 1998)
pp. 108-141
Copyright 1998 by University of Hawaii Press

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

p.108

Neo-Confucian traditions are believed to have had a pervasive influence on early modern Japanese religion, particularly in the area of mind-cultivation and its ethical implications. In this essay I would like to test this hypothesis by investigating views of the mind or heart (shin, kokoro) in two religious groups that originated during the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods. Misogi-kyo and Maruyama-kyo are both relatively obscure and retain only small numbers of members today, but in their formative phases they shared important characteristics with other "new religions" that later became better known. Before discussing the history of these movements and their teachings in detail, however, a few remarks about popular religious thought in Tokugawa Japan are in order.

During the Tokugawa period, many Confucian scholars were intensely interested in the workings of the mind and in the relationship between these processes and moral life. Whether scholars identified themselves with the teachings of the Sung scholars, especially the Cheng brothers and Chu Hsi, or with the reinterpretations developed in the Ming period by Wang Yang-ming and his followers, all affirmed the important role of the mind in moral development.[1] These ideas about the mind and its cultivation, particularly those associated with the Cheng-Chu tradition, gradually made themselves felt outside the halls of domain schools and private academies run by Confucian scholars. The vernacular writings of Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714), for example, as well as many lesser-known Confucian scholars, eventually led to significant popularization of the notion that mind-discipline leads to social well-being. Neo-Confucian ideas about the mind also circulated in Tokugawa society under the auspices of non-Confucian systems of knowledge. One could include in this category Shinto theories, according to which the mind in its pure, moral state is the dwelling place of the gods (kami)--a mode of thought found especially in early Tokugawa Shinto formulations that were influenced by Sung Neo-Confucian ideas.[2]

Zen Buddhists, for their part, had been spreading ideas about the mind in certain sectors of Japanese society long before the Tokugawa; upper-class lay people had become familiar with the idea of cultivating the mind through such Zen-associated practices as the tea ceremony, garden-viewing, and swordsmanship. But from the seventeenth century, Suzuki Shosan (1579-1655), Munan Shido (1603-1676), Bankei Yotaku (1622-1693), and other Zen popularizers preached about the Buddha-mind, no-mind, or original mind directly to common people. The stage

p.109

was now set for popular syntheses of Buddhist and Neo-Confucian ideas of mind-cultivation, such as we find in Sekimon Shingaku, founded by the merchant Ishida Baigan (1685-1744). Later, several new religious movements of the nineteenth century drew directly on Neo-Confucian mind-learning to advocate the rectification, purification, or calming of the mind as a foundation for good social relations. Helen Hardacre believes, for example, that Kurozumi-kyo's founder, Kurozumi Munetada (1780-1850), was influenced by Neo-Confucian ideas of the mind, probably as mediated by Shingaku.[3]

Yasumaru Yoshio argued over twenty years ago that early modern popular thinkers were centrally concerned with conceptions of the mind and human nature.[4] He cited, among others, Ishida Baigan, who claimed that "all things derive from the mind" and (in vintage Neo-Confucian fashion) praised the state in which "one takes heaven-and-earth and all things to be one's self."[5] Yasumaru duly pointed out that despite the idealistic tone of this way of thinking, it did not foster a passive, other-worldly attitude; on the contrary, it strengthened the role of the individual self in religious experience. Baigan, as well as the later agrarian thinkers Ninomiya Sontoku (1787-1856) and Ohara Yugaku (1797-1858), spoke out against "magical-type" folk beliefs (ideas about fox-spirits, goblins, apparitions, inauspicious days, and so forth). These and other popular morality teachers, argued Yasumaru, firmly believed in the limitless potential of the human mind and therefore downplayed the existence of spiritual forces beyond human control.[6] Moreover, these teachers` theoretical formulations about the mind ("philosophies of the mind-and-heart," kokoro no tetsugaku) ultimately justified and reinforced the "common moral values" (tsuzoku dotoku) of the time--honesty, frugality, filial piety, loyalty, diligence, and harmony--values that buttressed the Tokugawa social hierarchy.[7]

Yasumaru thus concluded that while these ideas about the mind stimulated the development of a sense of individuality among commoners, they also encouraged an attitude of modest submissiveness.[8] He detected this paradoxical combination of a developed sense of self and conventional moral piety not only in late Tokugawa moral teachers, but also in the founders of new religions, such as Kurozumi Munetada, Kawate Bunjiro (1814-1883), Nakayama Miki (1798-1887), and Ito Rokurobei (1829-1894).[9]

Despite her significant differences with Yasumaru, Helen Hardacre agrees with his premise that moral cultivation centered on the mind or heart was a dominant influence in the formation of the new religions of the nineteenth century.[10] In fact, extrapolating from her study of Kurozumi-kyo, and other groups, she suggests that the worldview of Japanese new religions in general may be related to the Neo-Confucian premise that self-cultivation is the foundation of social well-being.[11]

p.110

After citing one of Tu Wei-ming's succinct characterizations of this mode of thought, she concludes:

This complex of ideas about the self is found in the world view of the new religions stated in other idioms, using different terminology but identical in structure. This is not to say that the world view is historically derived whole in any direct way from Neo-Confucian thought, but the similarity in orientation is striking.[12]

The idea of cultivating the self, more specifically the mind/heart, is indeed a common emphasis in many of today's new religions. But the tentative tone of Hardacre's last remark above is well advised; correlations between self-cultivation and social perfection in nineteenth-century Japanese religion are best understood as complex, shifting syntheses of Buddhist, Shinto, Confucian, and other traditions. In some cases, the synthesis is indeed dominated by Neo-Confucian mind-learning; in others, however, the emphasis on mind and moral values is unrelated to any identifiably "Neo-Confucian" body of ideas. In the following pages, l shall discuss examples of both configurations in late Tokugawa and early Meiji religion.

The Origins of Misogi-kyo

Misogi-kyo was one of the thirteen religious groups designated "Sect Shinto" (shuha shinto) by the Meiji government. It has never been a large movement (in 1995 it reportedly had a membership of 99,180), but, like the better-known Kurozumi-kyo, with which it shares several features, its early history and teachings vividly illustrate the religious world of late Tokugawa Japan. The group has its origins in the activities and teachings of Inoue Masakane (1790-1849), son of a samurai employed in the domain of Tatebayashi (in today's Gunma Prefecture).[13] When Inoue was eighteen,[14] he practiced Zen under the guidance of Tetsuyu Zenni, an Obaku nun in the lineage of Shoto Mokuan (1611-1648). A year later, he set off on a journey to seek the guidance of various Shinto, Confucian, and Buddhist teachers, and eventually completed a stint in the Chinese medicine school of Nagata Tokuhon (1513-1630). By the age of twenty-five, Inoue began training under the Kyoto physiognomist Mizuno Nanboku. He underwent a strict regimen, carrying out menial work for his teacher and restricting himself to simple food and dress. It was reportedly during this time that Inoue learned to regulate his breath by concentrating it below his navel. After mastering the disciplines of the Nanboku school, the young man (now twenty-eight) moved to Edo and began practicing divination (under the name Shueki). The following year he added finger-pressure therapy (shiatsu ryoho) to his growing repertoire of physical and spiritual skills.

From about this time Inoue started to formulate his own system of

p.111

therapeutic arts. He began to attract a small following, supporting himself in the meantime by practicing medicine (under the name Toen). But his search was not yet over. At the age of forty-four he happened to hear some Shinto teachings from an old woman in the Tatebayashi domainal residence in Edo; he is said to have been profoundly moved and subsequently had a "divine dream" (shinmu) that inspired him to take up the "way of the gods." The next year (1834) he returned to Kyoto and enrolled in the Shirakawa (Hakke) school of Shinto, where he was initiated into ritual ablution (misogi) and, reportedly, breath-control practices.[15] When he was forty-seven, Inoue received approval from the Jingikan to carry out Shinto worship rituals, and, two years later, he was permitted to supervise miko ceremonial duties. In 1840, he became shrine priest of the Umeda Shinmei Shrine in Musashi (under the name Shikibu).

Once he obtained this official status, Inoue began to propagate in earnest the purification rituals that were to become the central practices of Misogi-kyo. But by 1841, his teaching activities had aroused the suspicions of the Superintendent of Temples and Shrines (Jisha bugyo), and he was imprisoned along with his wife, Onari. The Shirakawa house appealed to the Superintendent to remove the charges, but with little success--though Inoue was transferred to the custody of the Umeda community. The following year, he wrote a summary of his teachings and presented it to the authorities, presumably in order to exonerate himself.[16] But the office of the Superintendent continued to view Inoue and his teachings as a potential threat to the public order, and exiled him to Miyakejima.[17] He is said to have occupied himself there by healing the ill, praying for rain, building shrines, supervising silkworm cultivation, and building reservoirs. He died in exile at the age of sixty.

Inoue's followers persevered in their efforts to spread his teachings, provoking the shogunate to suppress the group further in 1862. After the Restoration, however,Inoue's wife, his senior disciple, Uneme, and Inoue himself (posthumously) were pardoned by the new Meiji state.[18] In 1872 the movement was officially recognized under the name Tohokami-ko, and allowed to propagate its teachings publicly. The group changed its name to Misogi-kyo in 1876, and in 1894 the government designated it an independent religious sect.[19]

Inoue Masakane's Teachings

The Shirakawa school of Shinto, into which Inoue had been initiated, placed priority on ritual activities--its theoretical teachings were not as elaborate as those of the Yoshida and Suika houses. In fact, Edo-period Shirakawa thinkers drew directly on Suika Shinto for inspiration,[20] and were evidently influenced by Yoshida Shinto as well. Given the title of his chief work, "Questions and Answers about Yuiitsu Shinto" (Shinto

p.112

yuiitsu mondo) we may assume that Inoue was referring, at least obliquely, to the Yuiitsu tradition formulated by Yoshida Kanetomo (1435-1515) and developed further by Yoshikawa Koretaru (1616-1694). We noted above that Koretaru's theories contained a heavy dose of Neo-Confucian thought. As Peter Nosco has pointed out, Koretaru's ideas resembled the Shinto speculations of such Neo-Confucian scholars as Hayashi Razan (1583-1657):

[B]oth...shared the belief that human nature, the mind or heart, and the godhead within man were differing aspects of essentially the same metaphysical phenomenon; and both theorized that the inner godhead became obscured by desires and wants, and that in order for man to return to the pristine goodness he enjoyed at birth, he must align himself with this godhead within and the gods of heaven without.[21]

Koretaru placed particular emphasis on the idea of makoto, sincerity, and taught both inner and outer forms of ritual purification (harai).[22] The external form of purification was ritual cleansing (misogi) while internal purification meant the cultivation of a pure, moral mind. All of these themes are found in Inoue's teachings, as we shall see.

The Misogi-kyo founder gained considerable inspiration from Neo-Confucian traditions--not only as mediated by the Yoshida and Suika schools of Shinto, but also through his own exposure to Neo-Confucian learning. As the son of a samurai, he had been educated in the basic Confucian texts and their Neo-Confucian commentaries. In "Questions and Answers about Yuiitsu Shinto," he freely quotes from the Four Books, and refers to the teachings of the Cheng brothers, Chu Hsi, and Wang Yang-ming, as well as to Ancient Learning (Kogaku).[23] But Inoue, writing in the nativist climate of late Tokugawa, also emphasized that "the source [of these Confucian teachings] is the tradition of the gods; everything [in them] is based on the Nihon shoki (Chronicles of Japan) and the Kojiki (Record of ancient matters)."[24] Despite its commonalities with Shinto teachings, for Inoue, Confucian learning was clearly a secondary expression of the truth. He felt that the way of the Five Confucian Virtues was a foreign teaching "based on writings and books"--not the pristine truth of Japan. The ethical and social principles needed for governing the nation and maintaining civil harmony had been transmitted to the Japanese people by the gods. They had not been created by human beings--whether by Confucius in China or by Shinto teachers like himself in Japan.[25]

Inoue took a similar approach to Buddhist teachings. In his "Questions and Answers about Yuiitsu Shinto," Inoue rarely uses Buddhist terms and does not cite Buddhist sources.[26] But unlike Hirata Atsutane (who himself had been active in the Shirakawa school), Inoue did not stridently criticize Buddhist or Confucian teachings; he simply

p.113

suggested that both traditions were auxiliary to the teaching of the gods.[27] Not surprisingly, given the intertwining of Buddhist and Shinto rituals and institutions in pre-Meiji Japan, the founder of Misogi-kyo was quite open to Buddhist practices and ideas. We know that he had dabbled in Obaku Zen in his youth, and even in his late years he affirmed the value of such practices as the nenbutsu, or invocation of Amida.[28] And, although Inoue takes pains to justify his emphasis on breath control by citing passages from the "Age of the Gods" chapter of the Nihon shoki and the Kujiki (Record of old things), he surely drew (even if unawares) on a long tradition of Buddhist-Shinto synthesis in his detailed program of breath regulation and chanting (discussed below).

In general, however, like the founders of other new religions, Inoue presented his teaching as an alternative to all established traditions--Confucian, Buddhist and even Shinto. He criticized the "Shinto priests of the world" (seken shinshoku); although they were instructed in the niceties of Shinto ceremonies, they lacked the correct internal attitude (kokoro), which Inoue viewed as the foundation of authentic ritual life.[29]

Inoue's innovation vis-a-vis established Shinto was precisely his attempt to revive this Yoshida-type emphasis on the mind through a concrete program of lay praxis. To begin with, he was unusually attentive to the bodily dimension of self-cultivation, undoubtedly because of his early grounding in medical and other physically oriented forms of knowledge. Misogi-kyo followers today believe that the practices Inoue advocated not only deepen one's faith, dissolve one's sins, and lead to a pure inner state (makoto), but also eliminate illness. Food and exercise are considered important areas of religious concern. In accordance with the austere example of the founder, Misogi-kyo members are encouraged to eat simple food in limited quantities and to dress in plain clothing, so as to inhibit the development of such personal defects as greed, irritability, insensitivity to other people's suffering, and poor health.[30]

The central theme of all Misogi practice, however, is purification. The main ritual is centered on a well-known Shinto formula called the "threetype" or "triple" purification (sanju no harai): Tohokami emitame, haraitamai kiyometamai (roughly, "Distant gods, please bless us; exorcise [evil from us], purify us").[31] Traditionally, the Triple Purification has been carried out during a retreat of three days' duration. On the first day, followers intone the formula intensively (several hundred times) and verse themselves in the path of "utmost sincerity" (shisei) by expounding the group's scriptures. On the second day, they strive to cultivate a profound sense of shame for the offenses and errors they have committed, and on the third day, they acknowledge the power of the gods of heaven and earth (tenjin chigi) by prostrating themselves before the sanctuary of the kami.[32]

The Triple Purification ritual is closely related to the breathing dis-

p.114

ciplines developed by Inoue. Members are taught to exhale in a rhythmic fashion as they chant the invocation; they are thereby blowing away their accumulated sins, faults, and curses (tatari). It is believed that when practitioners reach a point of extreme intensity in their breathing/chanting--when they can barely draw another breath or pronounce another chant--they will suddenly feel a tremendous sense of joy. At that point, they will attain the true mind (makoto no kokoro) and will no longer be troubled by the "mind of delusion"--personal desires for clothing, food, or shelter. They will simply be overwhelmed with gratitude toward the kami for the blessings they have received.[33]

Inoue advocated a regular breathing exercise (called Nagayo no den) to supplement and ensure the successful completion of the Triple Purification. He advised his followers to carry out the Nagayo exercise daily for the amount of time it takes to burn one incense stick. The discipline involves drawing breath through the nose down to the area below the navel and exhaling it in a narrow stream from the mouth. One must draw the breath gently into the abdominal area, without allowing any bloating, and then softly push it out again. Inoue taught that the breathing exercise would produce significant benefits: one would be imbued with divine virtue, freed from one's errors, and blessed with good fortune. One's moral behavior would improve and one's mental anxieties diminish. In fact, in Misogi-kyo, practicing the breathing exercise is considered a more effective means of removing personal defects and troubles in life than attempting to address these problems directly. Whenever "delusion," "carelessness," or "fearfulness" arises, Inoue suggested, one may best dispel it by chanting the Triple Purification formula and controlling one's breath.[34] The chanting and the breathing, in his view, were not episodic rituals; they constituted a daily program of self-cultivation.

Breath regulation clearly functions in Misogi-kyo as a means for calming the mind. In this respect the practice is comparable to Neo-Confucian quiet-sitting or to certain phases of Buddhist meditation. But the Misogi interpretation of breathing includes cosmological elaborations that draw on a peculiar strain of vitalistic thought. Inoue taught that the breath of heaven-and-earth gives life to all beings: breath is the generative force of the universe. By disciplining one's own breathing, one can return to the source of the universe--that is, to a state of "unity between kami and human beings" (shinjin goichi).[35] Indeed, it is because people are fundamentally one with heaven ("share the same principle," tenjin ichiri) that they cannot live without breathing. Further, as the vital essence of human beings, breath is also intimately related to the workings of the mind--and, by extension, to one's moral life. According to Inoue, "if one's breathing is correct, one's mind will be correct, and [therefore] one's actions will be correct. If one's breathing is

p.115

not correct and is defiled, one's mind will be evil and [thus] one's actions will be incorrect."[36]

The ritual chanting and regulation of breath, then, were specifically designed to foster an upright, selfless state of mind. In the Misogi framework, the workings of the mind are the key to religious fulfillment. Inoue taught that people enmeshed in their own thinking and planning (hakarai) alienate themselves from their divinely endowed power and virtue. In comments reminiscent of Shinyaku sermons on eliminating self-centered calculation in order to uncover one's original mind, lone advised his followers to attend carefully to their thought processes:

People whose thinking is based on their own planning separate [themselves] from the light of the gods by means of their own thought. All one's thinking and planning [come from] the proud mind that believes "I am wise." When the thinking of this proud mind emerges, it distances [one from] the light of the gods, and [the gods'] protection becomes weak. If one simply eliminates, over and over, the mind that believes "I am wise," and [instead] thinks "I am foolish," and if one preserves the [gods'] teaching, then through the light of the gods, one will understand the principles of things, and one will become serene in both mind and body.[37]

Inoue linked this purified state of mind with the fulfillment of common moral values and the corollary attainment of social harmony. The ultimate purpose of Misogi-kyo was to enable followers to become free of their self-centered thinking and to live a life of consideration for others. The founder emphasizes repeatedly in his writings that the enactment of his teaching will have beneficial social effects. "If you carry this system out properly, there is no doubt that you will personally become serene and your family well ordered; your descendants will be long-lived, harmonious, and prosperous."[38]

Inoue elaborates on this way of thinking by suggesting that the minds of other people are mirrors that reflect the good and bad features of one's own mind. "When my mind is evil, the minds of the people who encounter me are evil. When my mind is good, the minds of the people who encounter me are good...." In short, everything depends on one's own state of mind--"knowing oneself" is therefore a matter of the "utmost importance."[39] Hardacre has identified this way of thinking ("other people are mirrors") as a common feature of the worldview of the new religions.[40] Her further implication, that the worldview behind the "mirror" mentality is rooted in Neo-Confucian thought, is certainly borne out in the case of Misogi-kyo. Inoue concludes his gloss on the mirror-like quality of people's minds in familiar Neo-Confucian cadences: "Consequently, when the mind of head of the household is correct, then everyone in the household will be correct; when the head of the nation is correct, then the entire nation will be correct." For good

p.116

measure, he backs up his remarks by quoting from their locus classicus, the Great Learning. "If one family is humane, then the whole nation will develop humaneness; if one family is modest, then the whole nation will develop modesty.... This is called ...'one person determines the nation.' "[41]

This emphasis on the correct state of the mind was related, as in Shingaku, to an affirmation and even sanctification of accepted moral standards. Inoue advised a female disciple, for example, to improve relations with her husband simply by abandoning her self-centered thinking and entrusting herself to her husband's judgment. By deferring to her husband and "harmonizing with his mind," she would be harmonizing with the mind of the gods. This in turn would invite the gods' protection and endow her with divine virtue and power. Ultimately, Inoue predicted, the gods would unify her mind with her husband's: "they will make your thinking and your husband's thinking the same."[42] In Inoue's view, unity with the mind of the kami implied unity with others, though mostly in accordance with the mores of his time, such as wifely submissiveness.

Hardacre notes that the "other people are mirrors" idea contains "a tacit message that the self can control any situation."[43] In other words, the focus on internal attitude ultimately empowers the individual to some extent, even when that individual is caught in a nexus of restrictive, hierarchical social relations. Some social statuses are more restrictive than others, however; it is notable in this regard that neither Inoue Masakane nor Kurozumi Munetada was at the lowest level of the Tokugawa social order. Both founders held samurai rank, and their most committed followers, like those of the late Shingaku movement, were landed farmers, village headmen, merchants, and, not infrequently, local samurai. Focusing on their inner selves may well have empowered such constituents, who already possessed a modicum of religious and social autonomy. But the teachings of Inoue and Kurozumi apparently did not appeal in this way to impoverished peasants, at least not on a large scale.[44] We must then consider the type of religious system that did attract many followers from the less-privileged sectors of nineteenth-century Japanese society, and ask what role, if any, the Neo-Confucian paradigm of self-cultivation played in this kind of system.

The Early History of Maruyama-kyo

In his seminal discussion of the "philosophy of the mind," Yasumaru Yoshio gave detailed attention to the origins of an early Meiji religion called Maruyama-kyo. The group was founded by Ito Rokurobei (1829-1894), a farm laborer of Noborito village, in today's Kawasaki (in north-eastern Kanagawa Prefecture). Rokurobei was born into a poor peasant family, the Kiyomiya.[45] At the age of fourteen, he went into service as

p.117

farmhand with another local family. After a period of ten years, during which he was reportedly imbued with the value of hard work and thrift by his employer, Rokurobei married Sane, the eldest daughter of the Ito family, and was adopted as that family's eldest son. The Itos engaged in small-scale agriculture and trade in Noborito.

The members of the main branch of Ito Rokurobei's birth family, the Kiyomiya, were hereditary Fuji-ko guides (sendatsu) who were responsible for the local Fuji mound (Fuji-zuka) in Noborito.[46] They were apparently involved in a Fuji association called Maruyama-ko, which had been active in the Noborito area from late Tokugawa times.[47] As a member of the Kiyomiya family, Ito was immersed in Fuji beliefs and practices from early childhood; he is said to have experienced the power of Fuji several times as he grew up, particularly when he recovered from grave illnesses with the assistance of Fuji devotees' prayers and faith. He became an avid believer especially after the last such recovery, at the age of twenty-five. After this experience Ito began to contemplate the word "mind" in the phrase kokushin.[48]

It was not until later, however, that Ito initiated his own form of religious practice and belief. In 1870, his wife Sane became critically ill. An ascetic devoted to the worship of Fudo Myo, was brought in to pray for Sano's recovery, and in the course of his rituals, the ascetic was possessed by Sengen Daibosatsu, the deity of Mt. Fuji. Subsequently, Sane recovered, but as Ito was carrying out rituals to thank the god, he himself was possessed by Sengen. The deity complained about having been constrained to use the body of the "inauspicious" Fudo ascetic, and ordered Ito to act as his "intermediary" (toritsugi) from then on.

Ito, soon began to carry out arduous austerities, beginning with a twenty-one-day fast that culminated in the realization of his oneness with "the gods of heaven and earth" and his adoption of the title "the earth god's single-minded ascetic" (chi no kami isshin gyoja). After that he performed the shikimi discipline in order to reestablish the "original condition of the world and humankind."[49] The practice involved circumambulating Mt. Fuji on tiptoe (tsumadate [sic]) for a period of fourteen days while holding a banner that displayed the saying "Great Peace in the World" (tenka taihei).[50] This act was, in effect, a ritual re-creation of the world originally intended by the god of Fuji; it signaled the commencement of the new Maruyama teaching.

Ito, continued to carry out various ascetic practices, especially fasting, water disciplines, and smoke austerities.[51] He also became known for his healing skills, which attracted numerous visitors to his house.[52] Before long, his unusual activities attracted the attention of the local authorities. In 1873 and again in 1874, he was arrested on charges of attracting followers through illegal religious activities, and was frequently investigated by the police thereafter. In the meantime, because of his

p.118

increasing involvement in ritual austerities, Ito had been neglecting the family business, and his relatives now began strongly and actively opposing his religious activities. Faced with these challenges to his faith, in 1874 Ito ascended Mt. Fuji once again, this time determined to fast to death (danjiki nyujo)--no doubt inspired by the example of the Tokugawa Fuji leader, Jikigyo Miroku (1671-1733).[53] Just at this point, Shishino Nakaba (1844-84), a Fuji believer who had recently resigned his post at the Ministry of Religious Education (Kyobusho) in order to concentrate on developing his own organization, Fuji Issan Kosha, became interested in Maruyama and sent a messenger to persuade the fasting Ito to meet him.

The encounter reportedly took place on the slopes of Fuji, and the two leaders decided to join forces. Ito, formally affiliated himself with Fuji Issan Kosha, and when Shishino subsequently created a Fuji group called Fuso-kyo in 1876, Ito became one of its senior guides. The Maruyama leader was now associated with an officially approved religious organization; in 1879, he was provisionally appointed a kyodoshoku (Doctrinal Instructor) by the Ministry of Religious Education and permitted to spread his faith, though always within the ideological limits specified by the authorities.[54] The group's membership increased greatly; in 1880 one of its ceremonies reportedly attracted 100,000.[55] Its success was probably due, at least in part, to the perceived efficacy of Maruyama healing practices during a time when epidemics were rampant in the Kanto area.

In 1885, a year after Shishino died, Ito broke with Fuso-kyo and placed his group under the jurisdiction of the Shinto Jimukyoku (Bureau of Shinto Affairs). During this period the movement spread significantly to the west and north, though most followers lived in the Tokyo and Yokohama areas. It became especially popular in rural areas of Shizuoka, where members reportedly joined the campaign for the establishment of a national assembly and, under the auspices of debtors' political organizations (Shakkinto and Fusaito), instigated a revolt against bankers and wealthy farmers.[56] It is mostly because of these political involvements in Shizuoka that Maruyama has been considered an early Meiji example of the "world renewal" (yonaoshi) movements, often associated with peasant rebellions, that began to appear during the late Tokugawa.

Maruyama allegedly boasted over ten million members by 1892. But the movement had already begun to suffer from a lack of internal organization, and by Ito's death in 1894, the group was in serious decline.[57] According to Yasumaru, Maruyama-kyo assimilated elements from the Hotoku movement, concentrated on teaching the "common moral values" of diligence and thrift, and soon lost its earlier critical stance toward the Meiji state.[58] Today's group, still headquartered in Kawasaki, has a membership of about 11,000.

p.119

Maruyama-kyo in Its Religious and Political Context[59]

Maruyama-kyo inherited the Fuji beliefs and practices developed in the Edo period by Kakugyo Tobutsu, Jikigyo Miroku, and their followers. Like the earlier believers, Maruyama-kyo members deeply revered Mt. Fuji (referred to as Sanmyo tokai san) and identified it with the deity Sengen Daibosatsu. They also believed that Mt. Fuji was intimately related to the sun, which they considered the source of all things in the universe. Maruyama thus strongly affirmed the value of life in this world and associated the power of Mt. Fuji and the sun with agricultural productivity. The founder emphasized the agrarian dimension of Fuji devotion even more than the earlier Fuji teachers.[60]

Maruyama also inherited the ritual and ascetic traditions established by Kakugyo and Jikigyo. Religious disciplines had been carried out in the mountains since the early stages of Japanese history, and over the centuries these practices, systematized under the rubric of Shugendo, were heavily influenced by Buddhist rituals and ideas. Both Kakugyo and Jikigyo had bypassed Fuji Shugendo,[61] and use few Buddhist terms in their writings, but their occasional references to the Buddha are not strongly critical in tone. Ito, on the other hand, lived a good portion of his life in the anti-Buddhist climate of the early Meiji, and his writings vividly record his ongoing polemic against Buddhist institutions and ideas. The founder had undoubtedly become quite familiar with nativist critiques of Buddhism, perhaps through his association with Shishino (the founder of Fuso-kyo)--a Hirata follower employed by the Kyobusho during its early, most anti-Buddhist phase.

True to the conventional wisdom of the time, Ito implies in his Oshirabe that Buddhist beliefs are mistakenly focused on life in the next world and deny the value of present reality. He gives a peculiar agrarian twist to this critique, arguing that Buddhist teachings deny the principle of growth of natural phenomena, especially grains, and that Buddhism therefore works against the happiness of human beings, who derive their sustenance from the products of this growth. Along this line, for example, Ito condemns the Buddhist use of roasted beans (irimame) on Setsubun (the day marking the beginning of spring):

Scattering roasted beans on Setsubun--that is a Buddhist practice.... Shinto is a wide path: [one] takes the true seed of all things, and year after year enjoys sowing it and harvesting [its fruits]. Flowers do not blossom from roasted beans. If you sow fresh beans, they will undoubtedly sprout, blossom, and produce [new beans]. In Maruyama, it is forbidden to scatter roasted beans [on Setsubun].[62]

Ito's wish to purge Fuji devotion of its lingering Buddhist flavor is perhaps best illustrated by his complete rewriting of the nenbutsu, the invocation of Amida Buddha traditionally chanted by Fuji devotees.

p.120

Instead of Namu Amida Butsu, Ito wrote Namu amita usu, giving each character in the phrase a new interpretation that, in his view, more closely reflected Fuji beliefs and peasant concerns.[63] The net effect of Ito's reformulation of the nenbutsu is a renewed affirmation of the value of farm labor and its products, which are interpreted as blessings received from the sun/Mt. Fuji.[64]

Devotion to mountain kami is an aspect of early Japanese religion that came to be designated "Shinto," and Fuji associations are sometimes categorized under this rubric. In the Meiji period, the government classified new Fuji groups as "Sect Shinto," shuha Shinto. However, like the Tokugawa Fuji leaders, Ito maintained an independent stance with regard to all established religion; his alienation from Buddhism is paralleled by an explicit critique and reinterpretation of long-held Shinto traditions. Ito claimed, for example, that Amaterasu's grandson, Ninigi no Mikoto, traditionally regarded as the direct ancestor of the Imperial line, had failed in his original mission of ruling the world, and that the Imperial lineage (including the Meiji Emperor) therefore had deviated from the true way of the gods.

This idea helped fuel the founder's attitude toward the ruling authorities of his time. The millenarian tendencies of earlier Fuji believers had remained relatively subdued and inarticulate, no doubt partly because of shogunal repression; but in his writings, Ito openly censures the policies of the early Meiji state, especially the bunmei kaika or "civilization and enlightenment" campaign. As far as Ito was concerned, "civilization is the fall of humankind." Unlike most opposition activists of the time (whether so-called liberals or conservatives), the Maruyama leader looked back to Tokugawa times with not a little nostalgia. He was against not only Western clothes, hairstyles, medicine, the solar calendar, and Christianity, but also the activities of the Liberal Party (Jiyuto) and the establishment of a national Diet. He made the dire prediction that "the Western civilization countries, the Japanese National Assembly, the Treaty Revisions, the Liberal Party, and the Buddhist priests will perish."[65] Ito had been a Doctrinal Instructor from the late 1870s, and presumably expounded regularly on the Three Standards of Instruction (sanjo no kyosoku), an ideological formula that emphasized reverence for the Emperor. Nevertheless, in his writings Ito insisted that the Emperor was responsible for the sociocultural chaos of the times. "The Emperor...is to worship the sun and moon above, and to preserve the country below. He has forgotten this." The Maruyama founder directly attributed the disorder of the early Meiji to the wrongful thinking of the Emperor.[66]

To Ito almost all the Japanese people of his day seemed to be abandoning their true