The imperial law and the Buddhist law
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 14680840 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Toshio Kuroda (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1996 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 3-4 |
| Publication date | 1996-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0304-1042 |
| Publisher | Nanzan University (PUBLISHER • JP) |
| DOI | 10.18874/jjrs.23.3-4.1996.271-285 |
| OpenAlex | W48424075 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
Buddhism has often been regarded in purely intellectual or spiritual terms. However, especially in its institutional dimensions, Buddhism like other religious traditions has been closely associated with political authority, and to ignore this is to distort its history. To begin redressing scholarly neglect of this subject, the late Kuroda Toshio explores in this article the paired concepts of the ob6 (imperial law) and the bupp6 (Buddhist law) as an interpretive framework for investigating Buddhism's political role in the Japanese historical context. The doctrine of the mutual dependence of the imperial law and the Buddhist law (6bo buppo soiron) emerged toward the latter part of the eleventh century, in connection with the development of the estate system (shoen seido) of land tenure. As powerful landholders, the major temple-shrine complexes ofJapan's early medieval period constituted a political force that periodically challenged the authority of the emperor, the court, and the leading warrior houses, but on the other hand cooperated with these influential parties in a system of shared rule. This system actively involved Buddhist institutions in maintenance of the status quo and was criticized in various ways by the leaders of the Kamakura new Buddhist movements, who asserted that the bupp6 should transcend worldly authority. However, such criticisms were never fully implemented, and after the medieval period, Buddhism came increasingly under the domination of central governing powers. The relationship of Buddhism to political authority is a troubling problem in Japanese history and remains unresolved to this day
Archaeology · Buddhism · Political science · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.54 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2025 (13) |
| Highly cited | No |