Shinran to Marukusu shugi: tōsō, ideorogi, fuhensei (Shinran and Marxism: Struggle, Ideology, Universality)

Over the past several decades, scholarship on modern Japanese Buddhism has undergone something of a renaissance, with scholars in both Japan and elsewhere reassessing many long-held assumptions (see, e.g. Klautau and Krämer 2021; Ōtani et al. 2023). One fertile area of study is how images of traditional sectarian founders have been renegotiated in different eras of modern Japan, with perhaps none being the subject of as much writing as Shinran, Shin Buddhism’s traditional patriarch. This figure has been reinvented as everything from a national “founding father” and patriotic symbol to radical antiauthoritarian to an ally of the oppressed. In Shinran to Marukusu shugi: tōsō, ideorogi, fuhensei, Kondō Shuntarō endeavors to describe Shinran within Marxist and Marxist (or left-leaning) Shin Buddhist thought over about a century of history, from the Meiji era through the postwar period. This is an extraordinarily ambitious project in both its scope and range of topics, so below I will provide an overview of the book’s structure and a few points of interest from each chapter before commenting on the work overall.

Structurally, the book consists of articles that Kondō previously published separately between roughly 2014 and 2021. These have been extensively revised and rewritten for this volume and organized into seven chapters, divided into three parts: “Buddhism and Marxism: Between Liberation and Opiate” (chapters 1–3), “Shinran in Wartime Japan: Methods of Confronting Crisis” (chapters 4–5), and “Shinran in Postwar Japan: Emergent Social Practice” (chapters 6–7), followed by a supplementary chapter and the conclusion. As for the volume’s main themes, the introduction raises several issues that Kondō identifies within the modern historical understanding of Shinran. First, he sees a “tendency towards one-dimensionality” (9) in the discourse on Shinran, citing a bias in research towards Kiyozawa Manshi (1863–1903) and the Tannishō. Simultaneously, while acknowledging the work of scholars such as Melissa Curley and others, he notes that there have been comparatively few studies on the Shinran discourse of Marxists specifically. Indeed, one of the book’s interesting premises is that although Shinran, the physical being, had a finite historical existence, understandings of or theories about him are not pinned to any one point in history. From his death onward, ideas about this sectarian founder have continued to change within the minds and words of subsequent generations. By looking at Shinran as he is discussed by Marxist thinkers, Kondō proposes to look at one facet of this ongoing phenomenon.

In Chapter 1, “Takagi Kenmyō and Shinran in the Early Levelers Movement: Antiwar and Equality,” Kondō begins with a discussion of Takagi Kenmyō (1864–1914), an Ōtani denomination priest, socialist, and antiwar activist whom the author identifies as “arguably the first figure” (45) to reinterpret Shinran as a socialist. He positions Takagi within the Japanese Levelers movement (suiheisha undō), which focused its efforts on social equality for oppressed classes, particularly the burakumin. Kondō then looks at other writers—for example, Saikō Mankichi (1895–1970), Kurisu Shichirō (1882–1950), and Umehara Shinryū (1885–1966)—who discussed Shinran along a spectrum that reflected varying degrees of agreement, or sympathy, with the Levelers. He also provides examples of figures who argued against the interpretation of Shinran as a bridge between religion and social activism, such as the brothers Ōtani Kōzui (1876–1948) and Ōtani Son’yu (1886–1939), who were not only sons of the Nishi Honganji head but also Shinran’s descendants. Ultimately, prewar socialist understandings of Shinran, like those proposed by Takagi, faded as Japanese Marxists became increasingly hostile towards religion. Nevertheless, Kondō considers the early Levelers’ depictions of Shinran to be historically significant as they stand in contrast to later pro-state interpretations promoted by organized Shin Buddhism.

In Chapter 2, “The Antireligion Movement and Buddhism,” Kondō chronicles the short-lived Japanese antireligion movement of the late 1920s and early 1930s. The leaders of this movement were influenced by the Soviet antireligious campaign and Leninist literature that was being translated into Japanese at the time. Its leaders included influential leftists, most prominently Kawauchi Tadahiko (1899–1988). Although it did not gain popular traction, perhaps due to its rather dogmatic critique of religion as an opiate, Kondō raises at least two important accomplishments of the movement. First, it criticized religious complicity with government authority at a time when “the aspect of nationalism within religious authority was ascending” (140). Second, it did succeed in provoking several forms of response, ranging from sympathy within religious organizations to the establishment of counter-organizations and counterarguments. Interestingly, Kondō points out that those who sympathized with the movement frequently emphasized the social role of religion, mirroring the prominent Marxist critiques, while those who denounced it tended toward nationalistic views.

Chapter 3, “The Religious Discourse of Sano Manabu: Critique of Religion and Understanding of Shinran,” examines this important figure and his writing on Shinran throughout various stages of his life. Kondō holds that during his career with the Levelers in the early 1920s, Sano Manabu (1892–1953) saw in Shinran a potential symbol of social reform and class struggle. Later, as a leader in the Japanese Communist Party, he aligned his views with the prevailing Leninist critique of religion, focusing his attention on religion’s social functions. However, while imprisoned for his communist affiliation and undergoing tenkō (ideological conversion), he again revised his position. This time he found in Shinran the logical underpinnings for affirming the imperial state—a view likely encouraged, if not proposed, by the Shin priests who were employed to rehabilitate thought criminals. Finally, in the aftermath of World War II, he again reassessed Shinran, this time proposing him as the foundation for a kind of “Buddhist Socialism” (186). Kondō seems to highlight Sano’s story to illustrate how radically interpretations of Shinran can shift, even within a single individual of a single generation, making it difficult to view him as the product of one specific era.

The voluntary censorship of Shin Buddhist texts that occurred in 1940 from within the Nishi Honganji organization is the main subject of Chapter 4, “Honganji’s Wartime Scriptural Redactions and Empire as Religion.” To summarize, the Honganji administration forbade the reading aloud or quoting of certain passages of Shin Buddhist scripture, including portions of Shinran’s Kyōgyōshinshō. In new editions, some passages were even redacted and replaced by blank spaces. The parts targeted for such actions were those interpreted as being in some way critical or questioning imperial authority. Kondō concedes that this may have been simply a strategy for preserving the independence of the organization at a time of political crisis, but he points out that were this so, the redactions could have been quickly reversed after the end of the war. This was not the case, as censored versions of the text continued to be used until 1977. However, he also notes that the redactions were a mostly symbolic gesture. Previously existing copies of the original versions were still available at the time and anyone curious about the deleted text could have readily found uncensored versions.

Chapter 5, “The Path to a Postwar Discourse on Shinran: Centering the Marxist Experience,” is the longest chapter of the book. Unlike the other chapters, each of which has a defined event or figure as its focus, it is more of an overview of several decades of Shinran interpretations leading up to the postwar period. It opens by circling back to themes covered in previous chapters—such as the antireligion movement—with more emphasis on their connection to Shinran. Kondō then introduces more nationalistic understandings of Shinran from the 1940s by Akegarasu Haya (1877–1954) and Minoda Muneki (1894–1946), before discussing figures on the left who significantly influenced postwar depictions of Shinran, with a focus on Ienaga Saburō (1913–2002) and Hattori Shisō (1901–1956). This bridges nicely to the postwar period, with Kondō noting that Hattori’s work in particular formed a “starting point for postwar Shinran research” (336).

Chapter 6, “Futaba Kenkō on Shinran,” examines this notable historian and Shin Buddhist, who attempted to place Buddhism within a framework of relationships to history. In 1954 Futaba (1916–1995) published Shinran no ningenzō (The Human Image of Shinran), followed by Shinran no shakaiteki jissen (The Social Practice of Shinran) in 1956, and then Shinran no kenkyū: Shinran ni okeru shin to rekishi (Shinran Research: Faith and History within Shinran) in 1962. In these works, Futaba developed his ideas not only on Shinran but also on Buddhist history and practice. According to Kondō, he proposes the notion of the Buddhist subject (Bukkyōteki shutai) as a research subject (kenkyū shutai). Such a subject would be continually required to interrogate their own faith. This, as Kondō notes, puts the subject in the position of “departing on a journey to a destination they can never reach” (389), but in doing so enables the subject to imagine new perspectives beyond the confines of historical context. Futaba as told by Kondō appears to view Shinran as the ultimate example of such a subject, whose faith and practices are not bound by his historical existence.

Finally, Chapter 7, “The Anti-Yasukuni Movement and Shinran in Postwar Japan,” chronicles the mid-1960s protests against the Liberal Democratic Party’s Yasukuni Shrine Bill, which would have placed the controversial shrine under government stewardship. The bill was ultimately shelved in 1974, but not before sparking a sizeable debate over the separation of church and state. The leaders of this “Anti-Yasukuni Movement” were Shin Buddhists including the main figure from the previous chapter, Futaba Kenkō, and Kondō focuses on the role of Shinran in the movement. As organized Shin Buddhism had supported the government during the war, opposition to the bill could be seen as a step towards “recovering Shin Buddhism’s universality” (433). Moreover, Kondō holds that the Shin Buddhists could lead the movement precisely because they were able to find in Shinran both intellectual and faith-based reasons for opposing the bill.

As mentioned above, the remainder of the book consists of a supplementary chapter and a conclusion. In the former, Kondō takes a step back and spends some time providing a kind of academic autobiography, in which he traces the sequence of experiences and research that culminated in this book. This is an interesting and welcome addition, providing as it does a more personalized context for his research. The conclusion of the book, in addition to summarizing some of the main points already covered, proposes figures and events that he feels require further investigation—for example, the understanding of Rennyo and Muromachi period Shin Buddhist-backed uprisings (ikkō-ikki) in connection with class conflict in postwar historical research (497).

Although Shinran has already been covered from many perspectives, Kondō’s approach provides much new food for thought. He touches on many fascinating figures and events—many more than I could cover in this review—always letting the relevant individuals speak for themselves through well-chosen excerpts. Many of his subjects may be quite novel to students of Japanese religion. The aforementioned Hattori Shisō, for example, was heir to a Shin temple but rejected his hereditary priesthood to become a Marxist historian, eventually writing several works on Shinran and Rennyo in the postwar period. Kondō devotes several lengthy sections to him as a pivotal figure in the postwar reformation of Shinran’s image. He also repeatedly returns to a problem that he terms “religio-social dualism” (shūkyōteki tachiba to shakaiteki tachiba no nigenron). This refers to a tendency in modern Japanese academia to partition religion into social functions and faith while missing the broader question of how these parts are experienced by believers as a unified whole.

All told, this book provides a valuable, thought-provoking, and thorough look at Shinran from a new perspective. If I were to identify one aspect that I felt needed slightly more expansion, it is Shinran in conservative thought. While this topic is not totally absent, the volume’s focus potentially gives the impression that Shinran has an inherent compatibility with progressiveness. As with many ancient figures, whose recorded words and deeds are difficult to interpret through the prism of the present, Shinran can be, and has been, incorporated into right-wing worldviews too. However, this is a minor criticism given the book’s focus and the fact that an in-depth work on Shinran in conservative thought has been published relatively recently (Nakajima 2017). Besides, Kondō himself seems to view his book not as an endpoint, but as a series of first steps along another avenue of inquiry into how Shinran, Buddhism, and their histories are “continuously rewritten by new subjects” (498) in an ongoing process without end.

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