• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
• /
• v.18
• /
• pp.81-99
• /
• 2004

This text discusses trends in the construction of religions since the Meiji Era, using Konkokyo and Restoration Shintoism as examples. The construction of religions is applied here as the process of a deliberate acceptace of religious images as a discourse of "Civilization" endowed with "kyougi" or "Doctrine" and "kyousoku" or "Rules of Instruction." Winding through a meandering path, these constructed religions do not take precedence over "Jikyou" or "State Religion." Yet, "Jikyou" for a while was fixed in its own fragemented self-imagery. As for Shinto, in 1900, the Office of Shinto Shrines became independent from the Office of Shrines and Temples in the Department of Domestic Affairs, and clearly Shinto and Shinto Shrines were part of secular state ideology. In the Bakumatsu and Meiji Periods, it ultimately was cut off from Restoration Shinto, thereby achieving this development on its own. This tells of the formation of an entirely new and modern Shinto within a secular "Jikyou." Konkokyo, moreover, as a religion establishes "kyousoku" and "kyougi." As a Shinto sect, it takes steps on the path toward recognizing a self-identity, namely as religious Shinto. As a result, dogmatization and systemization progress, and "Byoukinaoshi" or "illness-recovery" from the Tokugawa Period weathers. Also, as for progress in the Shinto religious order, from its foundation, the characteristics of a unified state and religion emerge, and thus there is an acceptance of significant restrictions. This dillema continues to persist as a problem in postwar Japan. Shedding light on Tokugawa Era practice also sheds light on where we can now take religious concepts.