Bielefeldt Review of Dobbins

8/12/2019 Bielefeldt Review of Dobbins

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The Society for Japanese Studies

Review: [untitled]Author(s): Carl BielefeldtSource: Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer, 1991), pp. 381-386Published by: The Society for Japanese StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/132752.

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Review Sectioneview Sectionyoshu9, Tamekane's Torino ne no, really echoesthegradually pread-ing dawn thatthepoemdescribes(p. 110).Still, I admireHuey'sprecisionand his unflaggingdeterminationo tacklepoemson the fundamental evelof language prior to interpretation.The readerwho makes his or her waythrough his chapter, n particular,will come awayfromit witha verykeensense of how these poems work, what is special aboutthem, and whymost readersnow findthem so muchmoreinteresting han the contempo-raryproductsof the rivalNijo school.In Chapter6, Huey offers a lucid analysis of seven of Tamekane'spoems, in the process of which he re-uses manyof the methodsemployedin the precedingchapterto define the Kyogoku style. This section of thebook is yet anotherexemplary exercise. It is particularlysuccessful indemonstratinghow the treatmentof specific conventionaltopics (for ex-ample, the uguisu, the end of spring, longingforthepast, andtravel)changed over time. Huey shows that, from the Ky6goku poets' perspec-tive, the Shin kokinwakashu(1205) was the pivot in thisprocess, butmorethan once he also shows how the poetrythatMinamotoShunrai avoredincompiling the Kin'y6 wakashu, the fifth imperialanthology, in the firstquarterof the twelfthcentury,also tended to breakmolds andtest conven-tions. Indeed, Huey's several suggestions that the Ky6goku innovationswere in severalways analogousto those of the Kin'yoshuarequiteintrigu-ing. (Even the titles of the two anthologiesmay be said to be similarlyiconoclastic.) One hopes that it will not be long before anotherscholar-perhaps Huey himself-will take up the task of defining the Kin'yoshustyle and its strategicpointsof departureromthenormsin waysthat areasuseful andrevealingas those demonstratedby Hueyin his treatmentof theKyogoku movement. In thatevent, yet anotherof the avenuesopened upfor us by BrowerandMinermay find new light shed uponit, and, in turn,the ways we should take into still otheravenuesmay be revealed as well.

Jodo Shinshui:ShinBuddhism n MedievalJapan. By JamesC. Dobbins.IndianaUniversityPress, Bloomington, 1989. xii, 242 pages. $35.00.Reviewedby

CARL BIELEFELDTStanfordUniversitySurely one of the most obvious features of modernJapaneseBuddhismisits division into many separatedenominations.Indeed,so obvious is it that

yoshu9, Tamekane's Torino ne no, really echoesthegradually pread-ing dawn thatthepoemdescribes(p. 110).Still, I admireHuey'sprecisionand his unflaggingdeterminationo tacklepoemson the fundamental evelof language prior to interpretation.The readerwho makes his or her waythrough his chapter, n particular,will come awayfromit witha verykeensense of how these poems work, what is special aboutthem, and whymost readersnow findthem so muchmoreinteresting han the contempo-raryproductsof the rivalNijo school.In Chapter6, Huey offers a lucid analysis of seven of Tamekane'spoems, in the process of which he re-uses manyof the methodsemployedin the precedingchapterto define the Kyogoku style. This section of thebook is yet anotherexemplary exercise. It is particularlysuccessful indemonstratinghow the treatmentof specific conventionaltopics (for ex-ample, the uguisu, the end of spring, longingforthepast, andtravel)changed over time. Huey shows that, from the Ky6goku poets' perspec-tive, the Shin kokinwakashu(1205) was the pivot in thisprocess, butmorethan once he also shows how the poetrythatMinamotoShunrai avoredincompiling the Kin'y6 wakashu, the fifth imperialanthology, in the firstquarterof the twelfthcentury,also tended to breakmolds andtest conven-tions. Indeed, Huey's several suggestions that the Ky6goku innovationswere in severalways analogousto those of the Kin'yoshuarequiteintrigu-ing. (Even the titles of the two anthologiesmay be said to be similarlyiconoclastic.) One hopes that it will not be long before anotherscholar-perhaps Huey himself-will take up the task of defining the Kin'yoshustyle and its strategicpointsof departureromthenormsin waysthat areasuseful andrevealingas those demonstratedby Hueyin his treatmentof theKyogoku movement. In thatevent, yet anotherof the avenuesopened upfor us by BrowerandMinermay find new light shed uponit, and, in turn,the ways we should take into still otheravenuesmay be revealed as well.

Jodo Shinshui:ShinBuddhism n MedievalJapan. By JamesC. Dobbins.IndianaUniversityPress, Bloomington, 1989. xii, 242 pages. $35.00.Reviewedby

CARL BIELEFELDTStanfordUniversitySurely one of the most obvious features of modernJapaneseBuddhismisits division into many separatedenominations.Indeed,so obvious is it that

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Journalof JapaneseStudieswe often take the division for grantedand forgethow unusual it is in thehistoryof Buddhism.Wehave beengreatlyaided in this forgettingby Japa-nese Buddhist historiography,which is itself in part a productof de-nominationalscholarshipand still tends to readBuddhisthistorythroughthe lens of sectariantraditions. For these traditions,the modernJapanesechurches -at least the mainline churches -are but the currentin-stantiationof ancient institutions,each reachingback to a founding an-cestor in early Japan,andusually beyondto Chinese and Indiananteced-ents. Be that as it may, the modernJapanesesituation s unusual.If Buddhists everywherehave had their ideological differences andsociological divisions, the reductionof the Buddhistcommunity o a set ofritually(not to say legally) separateclericalcorporations ndespeciallythewholesale organizationof the laity into exclusive congregationalbodiesseem to be without real precedentin Buddhistexperience, even in pre-modernJapaneseBuddhistexperience.How this situationcame about is asubjectworthyof morestudythan it hasreceived. We shouldprobablybe-gin such study not with the foundingancestorsbut with the new religiouscircumstances createdby the policies of the early Tokugawashogunate,which restrictedreligious organizations o officiallysanctioneddenomina-tions and requireduniversalregistrationof the citizenrywith local Bud-dhist institutions. Still, we know that these early moderndevelopmentswereprecededand madepossible by a complex processof denominationalindividuationand consolidationduringthe Muromachiperiod.The process was complex, and before we can speak with confidenceaboutthe phenomenonas a whole, we shall need to trace the diversepathsof social, institutional,andideologicaldevelopment ollowed by the vari-ous denominations hatemergedfrom it. Of these, none was more dramaticthan thatof the Jodo Shinshu, or True Pure LandSchool, which man-aged to transform tself over the course of three centuriesfrom a cluster ofmarginalpietisticcults in the Kamakura eriodto a majorreligiousorgani-zation able to compete, at least in some areasof thecountry,with the secu-larpowersof the Sengokuperiod.The particular ircumstancesof Shinshuimay not alwaystell us much about MuromachiBuddhismas a whole (onethinksimmediatelyof the contrastswith, say, the Hosso of Kofukujior theRinzai of the gozan system), but theextraordinaryuccess of the school-together with its seemingly modern features of exclusive sectariandogma, separate andmarried)clergy,and extensivelay congregationalor-ganization-makes it an interestingplace to start.JamesDobbins' book representssuch a start. It tells the story of JodoShinshfi from the time of its founding ancestor Shinran (1173-1262)throughhis most revereddescendant,the famousShinshuprelateRennyo(1415-99). Chapterson these two figuresframe the story;in betweenare

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ReviewSectionshorter studies of early Shinshuhistory and thought, the developmentofthe Honganji, the relationshipof Shinshuto other (especially PureLand)Buddhisttraditions,andthe variousfactionswithin Shinshfi.Althoughwehavehadpreviousstudiesof ShinranandRennyo,this is ourfirst extendedhistory of the medieval Shinshu traditionand introducesmuch materialhithertoavailableonly in Japanese.An outgrowthof the author's1984 Yaledissertation,the book is well annotated o primaryandsecondaryJapanesesourcesandprovidesan extensivebibliography,detailedindex, andhelpfulcharacterglossary (which, unfortunately, eems to have been slightly gar-bled in the printing).In a brief introductorychapter,Dobbins lays out the themes of hisstory. In contrast to the assumption hatthe Shinshuchurchemergedfull-blownfromthe life andteachingsof Shinran, he authorwants to show thatShinshui ectariandevelopment like thatof theother Kamakura enomina-tions) was long andprotracted, ollowing an extended and sometimestortuouspath from Shinran o Rennyo (p. 1). Along thispath,he wants todefine the horizontalor synchronicenvironment n which the Shinshtuteachings occurred and to identify the external influences that shapedthe teachings (p. 7). As a conceptualframework or examiningShinshudevelopment, he is particularlynterested n the notions of orthodoxyandheresyand the variedwaysthese notions were usedto defineandjustify thefaith (p. 8).Inkeepingwith thesethemes, Dobbins treatsthe firstcenturiesof Shin-shuhistoryas a complex seriesof strugglesamongthe followersof Shinranto establish the definitive interpretationof his message and defend itagainstcriticismfrom without andheresyfromwithin, to createthe eccle-siasticalformsthroughwhichthe messagecould be preservedanddissemi-nated, and to lay claim to political powerandsymbolic authorityover theswelling ranksof Pure Landbelievers.Thepictureof Shinshuthatemergesfrom this treatmentlooks less like a single school (let alone a unifiedchurch)than a set of competingfactions, centeredon particularndividualsortemples, that ostled together orinfluence.In theprocessof jostling, theShinshu leaders regularly employed the standard echniquesof temporalpolitics-confrontation and conciliation, strategicalliance, familial con-nection, andthe like-and borrowed romother Buddhistsand each otherthe familiartechnology of spiritualauthority-ritual andliturgicalforms,initiation and transmissionrites, esoteric documents and lineage certifi-cates, and so on.This pictureof Shinran's raditionmay provesomewhattroublingto atleast the most conservative and theological among Shinshfubelievers,for whomthe Shinshuexperienceof faithin theBuddhaAmida mustbe thecentralpivot around which the history of the communityrevolves. Yet it

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Journalof JapaneseStudieswould be wrongto cast Dobbins as a cynicalcritic of thetradition.He maywant to replace (or perhapsto supplement)the vision of an unchangingShinshu creed with a historicalprocess of doctrinalevolution, but he re-mainsconfidentthat this processwas not a premeditated ttempt o buildup a school of Buddhism but rather an attemptover successive genera-tions to explicatethe inner ogic of faith (p. 10)-an attemptmotivatedbythe personalconvictions of the Shinshu leaders(p. 9). He may wanttodisplace the notion of a monolithicmedievalShinshu church with a plu-ralityof Shinshucommunities,but his work remainsvery much a churchhistory.In fact, Dobbins takesa rather onservativeapproacho historiography.His interest n the external forces thatshapedShinshudevelopmentdoesnot extend muchbeyondthe politicalandideologicalmaneuveringsof theShinshuprelates. Broader ssues of economics, politics, culturalpattern,and social structuredo not attracthim; current ads for social historyandpopularculturedo nottempthim. Rather,he prefersa morefamiliar greatman approach o religioushistorythatexplainsthe rise anddevelopmentof Shinshu largely in termsof the charismaticpowersand organizationalskills of its leading figures-especially the traditionalheroesof the faith:Shinran, the founding ancestor;his descendantKakunyo (1270-1351),who transformedShinran'smemorialshrine into the Honganji emple;andRennyo, who establishedthe Honganjias the dominantShinshu center.Of these three, Dobbinsclearlyfeels the mostambivalence owardKa-kunyo, whose efforts to establish the authorityof the Honganji(andits ab-bot)deepenedthe factionalism n the movementandforcedShinshuto waitfor Rennyoto unify the community (p. 88). Kakunyo'sruthlesstreatmentof his son Zonkaku,whom he disowned andbrandeda heretic, is justifiedhere on theological grounds(p. 87), but the authoralso recognizesa cer-tain flaw in the father's domineeringpersonality and his tenaciousandoften headstrongadherence o his political agenda (p. 81). Shinran,whoalso disowned his son Zenran,and Rennyo, who was (whateverelse hemayhavebeen) the ambitiousBuddhistpoliticianparexcellence, seem notto have had such flaws: the latter'sdeep involvement, for example, inHokurikupolitics andthe peasantrebellions of the ikkoikki movement istreatedlargelyas an attempt o purifyanddisseminatethe faith;Shinran'sstrugglewith Zenranover control of the Kantocommunities is explainedthrough he tragicfailureof the founder's on to understand hemeaningoffaithandgraspthe messageof the father(pp. 41-42).This failureof Zenran who plays a kind of Devadatta ole for Shinshuhistory)is anearlyexampleof what came to be calledby the church anjin,or false faith. In this instance,the error ay in Zenran's eputedassertionof his authorityas a spiritualmasterand his suggestionthat such authority

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ReviewSectionmight play a role in the religious life. Unexceptionalas such a suggestionmightbe in JapaneseBuddhism(includingmuch Pure LandBuddhism),itis consideredaheresy n Shinshut ogmaticsbecause t threatens he church'scardinal soteriological principle that salvation depends not on humanagency but solely on faith in the primalvow of Amida. Zenran's atherap-parentlynevermade this error.As evidence, the authorquotes the famouspassage attributed o Shinranby the Tannish6 n which he denies any spe-cial Buddhistlearningand describeshis religion as a simple faith in theteachings of his master, Honen-whom, he says, he will follow even ifdoing so leads him not to paradisebut to perdition p. 41).The interpretivessue here is more interesting han the historicalques-tion of whetherthe Tannish6accuratelyreflects Shinran(or the ShinshusourcesadequatelyrepresentZenran).Dobbinsreads this passage as Shin-ran'srejectionof the master'srole; othersmight read it as his model forhow the faithful should submitthemselves to the master. Under the latterreading, Zenran'serrorlay not in elevatingthe masterbut in picking thewrong masterto elevate.I mentionthisexamplebecauseit is illustrativeboth of the author'snter-est in the theme of heresy andof the deferencehe shows toward Shinshuorthodoxyin his treatmentof the theme. Dobbinsshares with the churchanostalgia for the faith of the founder,againstwhich, like the church, heregularlymeasuresthevariedteachingsandpractices hat he findsin medi-eval Shinshu.Those thatdeviatefrom this faith aretakento be unorthodoxinterpretations (p. 48), extraneous elements (p. 65), mistakes,completely new ideas (p. 77), misconceptions, and misinterpreta-tions (p. 139).Theparticular ision of the faithoperativehere tends towardwhatmight be called a left-wing Protestant eadingof Shinran,heavilyinfluencedby the Tannisho,thatemphasizesthe individual's nnerrelation-shipto the dietyand is highlysuspiciousof ecclesiasticalauthority.A sense of this vision helps us to appreciate he book's ambivalencetowarda figurelike Kakunyo,who is credited at once with preservingthefounder'sfaithandfixing the Honganji,and its sacerdotal ineage of Shin-ran'sdescendants,as the chief arbiterof that faith. Morebroadly, t lends acertain irony to the book as a whole, which is after all in large part anaccount of the processes throughwhich the church came to establish itsecclesiastical authorityover Shinshureligious life. More broadlystill, itraises the questionof the extent to which the book'saccount of these pro-cesses is itself a productof them, as they havecontinuedto operatein de-nominationalscholarship romRennyo'sdayto our own.Whateverwe may say aboutDobbins' readingof Shinran,its use as anormativemeasure for determiningwhat is authenticallyShinshu seemsoddly at odds with the author'shistoricalthemeof pluralityandchange:by

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Journalof JapaneseStudiesournalof JapaneseStudiesrelegatingmuch of the actualpracticeandbelief of the medievalShinshucommunities to a heterodoxperiphery, t tends to reinforcethe notion that(at least in matters deological)there was a constantorthodoxcore. In theend, then, it runs the risk of begging at least partof the issue with whichwe began: how to understand he historical characterof the premodernJapaneseBuddhistdenominations.Giventhe varietyof religiousideas andinstitutionsso clearly displayedfor us here, the questionremains to whatextent (in what senses and at what points) we can say there was a JodoShinshuin medievaltimes. If Dobbins' book does not quite get us all thewayto the answer,it does providea wealth of thesort of historicalmaterialwe would need for an answerandtherebygets us considerablycloser to itthanany workhithertoavailable n English.

RememberingParadise: Nativism and Nostalgia in Eighteenth-CenturyJapan. By PeterNosco. Council on EastAsian Studies, HarvardUni-versity,Cambridge,1990. xiv, 271 pages. $27.00.ReviewedbyJ. VICTOROSCHMANNCornellUniversity

RememberingParadise surveys the lives and works of Keichii (1640-1701), Kada no Azumamaro(1669-1736), Kamo no Mabuchi (1697-1769), and MotooriNorinaga(1730-1801), placingtheircontributions oJapanese thought against the backgroundof majorsocial and intellectualdevelopments n the first half of theTokugawaperiod(1603-1868). It alsopresentsthese figuresas themajorearlyproponentsof a streamof nostalgicnativism which extends fromthe sixteenthto the nineteenthcenturies,andperhapsbeyond.The author'soutlineof the book'sobjectives(some of which also adornthe dustjacket)is sufficientlyrevealingof the work'soveralltone and strat-egy to serve as a framework or discussion andargumentation.Let us setaside the first objective for the moment and considerthe second, whichaccuratelysuggeststhebook'sseamless, narrative ccountof the growthofeighteenth-centurynativism: [The book] hopes to make historicalsenseof the emergenceanddevelopmentof [theeighteenth-century ativists']attimes radicalphilosophies, on the one hand, by showing their slow andreasonableemergenceoversome one hundredyears, and, on the other,bycontextualizing his dynamicproblematikbothsocially andideologically(p. xi).

relegatingmuch of the actualpracticeandbelief of the medievalShinshucommunities to a heterodoxperiphery, t tends to reinforcethe notion that(at least in matters deological)there was a constantorthodoxcore. In theend, then, it runs the risk of begging at least partof the issue with whichwe began: how to understand he historical characterof the premodernJapaneseBuddhistdenominations.Giventhe varietyof religiousideas andinstitutionsso clearly displayedfor us here, the questionremains to whatextent (in what senses and at what points) we can say there was a JodoShinshuin medievaltimes. If Dobbins' book does not quite get us all thewayto the answer,it does providea wealth of thesort of historicalmaterialwe would need for an answerandtherebygets us considerablycloser to itthanany workhithertoavailable n English.

RememberingParadise: Nativism and Nostalgia in Eighteenth-CenturyJapan. By PeterNosco. Council on EastAsian Studies, HarvardUni-versity,Cambridge,1990. xiv, 271 pages. $27.00.ReviewedbyJ. VICTOROSCHMANNCornellUniversity

RememberingParadise surveys the lives and works of Keichii (1640-1701), Kada no Azumamaro(1669-1736), Kamo no Mabuchi (1697-1769), and MotooriNorinaga(1730-1801), placingtheircontributions oJapanese thought against the backgroundof majorsocial and intellectualdevelopments n the first half of theTokugawaperiod(1603-1868). It alsopresentsthese figuresas themajorearlyproponentsof a streamof nostalgicnativism which extends fromthe sixteenthto the nineteenthcenturies,andperhapsbeyond.The author'soutlineof the book'sobjectives(some of which also adornthe dustjacket)is sufficientlyrevealingof the work'soveralltone and strat-egy to serve as a framework or discussion andargumentation.Let us setaside the first objective for the moment and considerthe second, whichaccuratelysuggeststhebook'sseamless, narrative ccountof the growthofeighteenth-centurynativism: [The book] hopes to make historicalsenseof the emergenceanddevelopmentof [theeighteenth-century ativists']attimes radicalphilosophies, on the one hand, by showing their slow andreasonableemergenceoversome one hundredyears, and, on the other,bycontextualizing his dynamicproblematikbothsocially andideologically(p. xi).

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Bielefeldt Review of Dobbins