Customer Reviews

Religions of Japan in Practice

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Anyone seeking greater insight into the many and varied religions of Japan, and how they are practiced in actual daily life could not do better than "Religions of Japan in Practice." This book differs from most other texts on the subject by presenting translations of various religious documents, pamphlets, advertisements and religious stories rather than interpretations.

While the religious stories translated can be found in many sources, specifically the many Buddhist doctrines and such, nowhere else have I discovered a translation of the tourist's pamphlet of Yasukuni Shrine, the controversial Shinto shrine celebrating the honored "war heroes" of World War II, or the children's pamphlet describing the "Miraculous Tales of the Hasedera Kannon." It is these small touches that make this book so incredible.

The organization of "Religions in Japan in Practice" is also wonderful, focusing on the various aspects of religion in daily life rather than the differences between shinto and Buddhism's various sects. However, there are cross indexes of organization by chronology and religious tradition if needed.

The book is scholarly in nature, and would not be a valuable book for anyone seeking insights into their spirituality or to open their third eye. However, anyone with an interest in or making a serious study of the religions of Japan needs "Religions of Japan in Practice."

It seems to be almost a required rhetorical given nowadays for books published by academic presses to claim usefulness to students, specialists, and general readers alike. Few live up to this admittedly implausible promise, but "Religions of Japan in Practice" comes pretty darn close. Clearly it's principally intended as a source book of primary readings for college students, and in that capacity provides an extremely good grasp of the incredibly rich array and variety of Japanese religiosity. Each of the forty-five selections is carefully translated and accessibly introduced by an expert in the field specializing in that subject, so that overall the work makes for a trustworthy and reliable textbook. Speaking as someone who has avidly studied Japanese religions for many years now, though, I can vouch that specialists and other old hands at this topic will or at least should themselves find the selections herein immensely interesting and, yes, even informative as well.

Though surely there must have been heartbreaking omissions the editors had to insist upon so that the book didn't grow to unwieldy proportions (it's a hefty volume as it is), the range of selections is pretty comprehensive, with at least something representing most Japanese religious traditions and subdivisions thereof present and accounted for from the earliest records to contemporary articles--with the sole exception of 20th-century "New Religions" which seem conspicuously absent. More to the point of this book, each selection is in its own way uncommonly vital, a living breathing sample of vibrant religiosity actually known and practiced by real people--no dusty doctrinal tracts long forgotten in monastic libraries here (though I sometimes enjoy these, too). Indeed, this is a refreshingly down-to-earth anthology. A majority of the translations appear only here, while some have been adapted from relatively obscure sources available only in major university libraries; only a small handful can be found in other readily available publications, and their absence in this source book would've been regrettable in any case.

Obviously with such an embarrassment of riches, different folks will find different aspects of the book appealing for different reasons. Personally I found the texts included from Japan's Zen (Rinzai and Soto) traditions here especially intriguing and noteworthy for the manner in which they--by the way, as it were--happen to deconstruct and undercut certain all-too-common idealized and essentialized stereotypes, and the quantity of Pure Land tracts does justice to the pervasive nature of this form of Buddhism in Japan while not submerging the equally important (and, to me I must say, more engaging) types of Buddhism such as Shingon and Tendai. The example of an actual Shugendo apocryphal sutra is a particular standout for me since translations of these are so unimaginably rare despite their ubiquity in certain regions of Japan such as (for example) the one where I lived for several years, while the child's guide to Yasukuni Jinja offers an unsettling but preciously unprecedented glimpse into the self-presentation of this controversial shrine that still tends to make the news from time to time. In general too the many hagiographies and miracle tales, in addition to their value as religious documents and the way in which they tend to muddle our cut & dry sectarian categories, give a certain level of homely literary enjoyment or else movingly testify to deeply human concerns entrusted to the divine. Well, I could go on and on, but in short, there's a lot going on in this book, and, for once, pretty much something for everyone.