From Battlefield to Atomic Bomb to the Pure Land of Paradise: Employing the Bodhisattva of Compassion to Calm Japan's Spirits of the Dead

Abstract

56 years after the end of World War II, the spiritual condition of Japan's military and civilian casualties remains very much a present-day concern. This is relevant not only for bereaved families, but also for city governments, religious institutions, and the state. In 1995, a new 'hall of mourning for the spirits of the unknown dead (killed) in the atomic bombing' was constructed with public and private funds at the edge of the Peace Park in Nagasaki. Enshrined within is the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion, Kannon, along with the Amida Buddha of the Pure Land, and an attendant bodhisattva , Seishi. Despite the momentum of religious history, regular ritual practices conducted in front of these deities, and prayers for the deceased led by Buddhist priests, this is not a religious site according to city and prefectural officials. To understand the logic at work in Nagasaki requires an appreciation of legal precedents from the 1960s and 1970s involving war memorial stones as well as yearly rituals held for the military dead at Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo. At issue is a state-sanctioned process of appropriating religious figures, traditions, and ritual sites so they become 'national folkways'. Despite constitutional restrictions, public funds have been used regularly to sanction both rituals and ritual sites that perpetuate and glorify the memory of the war dead. Neither civil religion nor established religious practice, the situation in Japan provides a new paradigm regarding the dynamics of state-sponsored ritual activity.