Abstract
In this paper I examine how the Japanese True Pure Land Buddhist school (Jōdo Shinshū or Shin Buddhism) has attempted to come to terms with the position of temple wife (bōmori), which has historically been a local position based solely on marriage ties to the resident priest of a temple, in a way that accommodates the modern principles of individual rights and freedom of religion. The central Jōdo Shinshū institutions of the Ōtani-ha and Honganji-ha have responded to demands to recognize the autonomous choice of temple wives to undertake a life of service to the parish temple by formulating an initiation ceremony meant to encourage the temple wife’s self-awareness as a religious professional. Utilizing ethnographic fieldwork conducted from 2009 to 2013, I survey the various sites where Buddhism is lived and experimented in contemporary Japan. I highlight the interplay between local and central sources of religious meaning and authenticity.
Highlights
In this paper I examine how the Japanese True Pure Land Buddhist school (Jōdo Shinshū or Shin Buddhism) has attempted to come to terms with the position of temple wife, which has historically been a local position based solely on marriage ties to the resident priest of a temple, in a way that accommodates the modern principles of individual rights and freedom of religion
I was based in Kyoto, where the head temples of the two major denominations of the Jōdo Shinshū, the Ōtani-ha (Higashi Honganji Temple) and the Honganji-ha (Nishi Honganji Temple), are both located
In the above pages, I have explored the ways in which the conventional discourses of the modern that currently circulate in Japan have and have not left their imprint on the self-understanding of the bōmori whom I knew, regarding the idea of individual rights
Summary
In this paper I examine how the Japanese True Pure Land Buddhist school (Jōdo Shinshū or Shin Buddhism) has attempted to come to terms with the position of temple wife (bōmori), which has historically been a local position based solely on marriage ties to the resident priest of a temple, in a way that accommodates the modern principles of individual rights and freedom of religion. Perhaps more than any other top-down development, the temple wife initiation ceremony reveals the large disconnect between the Buddhist sect’s centralized bureaucratic administration and the reality of religious life “on the ground” at local family-run temples.
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