Ecology in seventeenth-century Japan: the ‘Great Way’ of Kumazawa Banzan

Abstract

AbstractThe introduction glances at the historical background of seventeenth-century Japan and the role of Kumazawa Banzan. His views are then presented as a variant of the ‘anthropocosmic’ character of premodern religious thinking as identified by the Romanian scholar of religion, Mircea Eliade (1907-86). Banzan adopted the Neo-Confucian view of man as ontologically embedded in the natural order and held a Confucian faith in the arcadian ancient Chinese ‘Three Dynasties’ created through the artifice of Chinese Sages. The essay describes Banzan’s cyclical view of time, fall from arcadia, and man’s agency in post-lapsarian history. It addresses failures in rulership responsible for the ecological crisis of contemporary Japan. It then turns to the ‘eternal return’ characteristic of the traditionalist religions studied by Eliade. A conclusion explores homologies between Banzan’s diagnosis of crisis in his pre-industrial world and the fraught views of man and nature in the twenty-first century.