Entering the Temple: Priests, Peasants, and Village Contention in Tokugawa Japan
Despite the ubiquity of the Buddhist clergy in rural communities during the early modern period, these religious figures have long been relegated to the marginalia of social histories on Tokugawa Japan. This article seeks to re-situate Buddhist temples and their abbatial residents in our models of v...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Nanzan Institute
[2001]
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| In: |
Japanese journal of religious studies
Year: 2001, Volume: 28, Issue: 3/4, Pages: 293-328 |
| Further subjects: | B
Clerics
B Abbots B Buddhism B Religious Studies B Priests B Samurai B Peasant class B Villages B Temples |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | Despite the ubiquity of the Buddhist clergy in rural communities during the early modern period, these religious figures have long been relegated to the marginalia of social histories on Tokugawa Japan. This article seeks to re-situate Buddhist temples and their abbatial residents in our models of village life by looking at nyūji (entering the temple), a form of Buddhist conflict mediation centering on instances where peasants in trouble with village authorities sequestrated themselves within temple precincts, and petitioned the clergy to act on their behalf with the other parties. While derived from medieval temple asylum practices, the present examination considers nyūji as a uniquely Tokugawa phenomenon by showing how the mechanics of nyūji, and the systems of social, political, and religious politics underlying it, embodied a multiplicity of meanings and functions which could both simultaneously support, and quietly subvert, the Tokugawa legal order operating in rural communities. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Japanese journal of religious studies
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