Abstract This article reexamines the 1872 Edict of the Abolition of the Shugen-shū ( shugen-shū haishi rei 修験宗廃止令) within the broader context of early Meiji religious policy. Scholarship has often interpreted the measure as a direct consequence of the Separation of Kami and Buddhas ( shinbutsu bunri ) and anti-Buddhist policies. Drawing on governmental communications, an internal directive issued by Shōgoin temple, and materials from the Dajō ruiten ( Grand council of state collected records ), this article instead examines the administrative debates and classification problems that preceded the edict. It argues that the measure was not primarily intended to suppress Shugendō practices, but formed part of broader efforts to reorganize religious institutions while resolving the ambiguous administrative status of Shugendō. This perspective complicates narratives that portray Shugendō as having simply been eradicated during the Meiji period and demonstrates how processes of administrative classification shaped the reorganization of religious traditions in modern Japan.
Abstract In the literature about traditional festivals, the question of what the festival rites mean , or what they may have meant “originally,” is often at the forefront. Yet, in a fieldwork situation, festival actors tend to give seemingly random answers to such questions or make it clear that they are not relevant to them. On the other hand, festivals require constant investments of time and money, as well as access to public space, for which an explicit narrative of meaning is often necessary. What, then, is the place of meanings in festivals? This article uses the theoretical perspective of Humphrey and Laidlaw (1994) to analyze attributed meanings in the hanamatsuri festivals of Oku Mikawa, Japan. Tracing the history of narratives regarding the meaning of these festivals, I propose that while historical crises have at times called for radically new meanings, the development of festival performances has followed its own dynamic.
Abstract This article examines how the Japanese Holiness leader Nakada Jūji interpreted the Māori religious movement led by Tahupōtiki Wiremu Ratana during his visit to New Zealand in the 1920s. Rather than approaching the Ratana movement as a distinct religious tradition, Nakada understood it within a universal Christian horizon shaped by his eschatological worldview. Drawing on his letters and writings, the article shows that he initially recognized the movement as a form of spiritual awakening but later reassessed it as theologically incomplete. This shift reflects a hierarchical mode of inclusion grounded in a developmental understanding of spiritual maturity within salvation history. The case demonstrates how transnational religious encounters could be framed not as exchanges between equal traditions but through classificatory frameworks that combined theological universalism with differentiated assumptions about human development.
