Buddhism in Japan

According to the chronicles, a king of Paekche sent a gilt-bronze image of the Buddha and sutras to the Yamato court in the mid-sixth century. The powerful Soga clan championed the new faith against the Mononobe and Nakatomi, who feared the anger of the native kami; the Soga victory in 587 opened the way. Prince Shōtoku (574–622), regent under Empress Suiko, became the model Buddhist statesman, and the temple he founded at Ikaruga, Hōryū-ji, preserves the oldest wooden buildings in the world.

In the Nara period Buddhism became a state institution. Emperor Shōmu ordered an official temple and nunnery in every province (741) and had the Great Buddha of Tōdai-ji cast, consecrated in 752. Six scholastic schools studied imported doctrine in the capital, and the Chinese monk Ganjin (Jianzhen) arrived after several failed crossings to establish correct ordination, founding Tōshōdai-ji.

When the capital moved to Heian-kyō (Kyoto) in 794, two monks who had studied in Tang China founded the schools that would dominate the next centuries. Saichō (767–822) established Tendai on Mount Hiei, teaching that all beings can attain Buddhahood through the Lotus Sutra; Enryaku-ji became a vast monastic university from which almost every later founder emerged. Kūkai (774–835), known posthumously as Kōbō Daishi, brought Shingon, an esoteric (mikkyō) teaching of mantras, mudras and mandalas centred on the cosmic Buddha Dainichi, and founded the mountain monastery of Kōya-san.

Esoteric ritual promised both enlightenment and worldly benefits – rain, health, victory – and made Buddhism indispensable to the aristocracy. It also supplied the framework for the fusion with kami worship. From the tenth century, fear of the degenerate age of the Dharma (mappō), believed to begin in 1052, turned devotion towards Amida Buddha and rebirth in his Western Paradise, expressed in halls such as the Phoenix Hall of Byōdō-in at Uji.

The upheavals of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries produced a religious reformation. Several monks trained on Mount Hiei left to offer simpler paths accessible to warriors, farmers and women. Their movements, initially persecuted, became the largest denominations of Japanese Buddhism and remain so.

The Pure Land schools taught reliance on the vow of Amida Buddha rather than one's own effort; Shinran went so far as to reject monastic celibacy and married openly. Zen, brought from Song China, stressed meditation and direct insight and found patrons among the shogunal warrior class. Nichiren insisted that the Lotus Sutra alone could save the nation, a militant stance that brought him exile and that still marks Nichiren-derived movements.

By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the great temples were political and military powers. Armed leagues of Jōdo Shinshū followers (ikkō ikki) ruled whole provinces, and Mount Hiei maintained its own warrior monks. Oda Nobunaga broke this power by burning Enryaku-ji in 1571 and forcing the fortified Ishiyama Hongan-ji in Osaka to surrender in 1580.

The Tokugawa shogunate then turned Buddhism into an arm of administration. To root out Christianity, every household had to register with a Buddhist temple that certified it was not Christian (terauke). This danka system tied families to a temple for funerals and memorial rites – the basis of Japanese Buddhism's economic model to this day – while limiting doctrinal innovation.

The Meiji separation of Shinto and Buddhism in 1868 stripped temples of their role in shrines, and anti-Buddhist violence (haibutsu kishaku) destroyed countless buildings and images, particularly in domains such as Satsuma. In 1872 the state ceased to enforce clerical celibacy, and marriage of priests became the norm in most schools.

A Japanese temple (tera or -ji; larger sub-temples -in) is entered through a main gate (sanmon or nandaimon), often guarded by two fierce Niō kings. Inside lie the main hall (hondō or kondō) with the principal image, a lecture hall, a bell tower with a great bronze bell struck 108 times on New Year's Eve, and often a pagoda that originally housed relics of the Buddha. Zen temples follow a distinct axial layout and frequently include dry landscape gardens.

Statues fall into recognisable groups: buddhas (nyorai) such as Shaka, Amida, Yakushi and Dainichi; bodhisattvas (bosatsu) such as Kannon and Jizō, the protector of children and travellers found by roadsides throughout Japan; wisdom kings (myōō) such as the flame-backed Fudō; and guardian devas (ten).

Most Japanese families belong, at least nominally, to the school of their ancestral temple, even if they rarely think of themselves as Buddhist. The temple conducts the funeral, bestows a posthumous Buddhist name (kaimyō), keeps the family grave and holds memorial services at fixed intervals, traditionally up to the 33rd or 50th year after death. Obon in summer and the spring and autumn equinox weeks (higan) are the main times for visiting graves.

This 'funeral Buddhism' (sōshiki bukkyō) faces pressure from urbanisation and depopulation: many rural temples lack successors, and simpler funerals and non-traditional burials are spreading. At the same time temple stays, sutra copying (shakyō), meditation sessions and pilgrimages such as the 88 temples of Shikoku attract new participants. Postwar lay movements rooted in Nichiren Buddhism, notably Sōka Gakkai and Risshō Kōsei-kai, are among the largest religious organisations in the country.