Hymns of Pure Land Masters (Jōdo kōsō wasan) or Hymns on seven Masters (Shichi kōsō wasan) were written by Shinran (1173–1262), founder of “True Faith Pure Land” school (Jōdo Shinshū), in 1248 at the age of 75 years. In 1473 the school’s eighth hierarch Rennyo (1415–1499) published the text in woodcut. The collection of hymns consists of 119 stanzas, devoted to seven eminent monks: Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu of India, T’an-luan, Tao-ch’o and Shan-tao of China, and Genshin and Genkū of Japan. Shinran’s hymns in Japanese were included in the canon of school’s sacred texts and were recited during morning and evening services. In this publication translation in Russian of hymns in Japa­nese devoted to Indian monks Nagarjuna (ten stanzas) and Vasubandhu (ten stanzas) are presented. Shinran called Nagarjuna the original teacher (honshi) and also bodhisattva (bosatsu), as well as Vasubandhu. Shinran describes in poetic form necessary biographic data as well as school’s doctrinal provisions developed by these Indian patriarchs.

Japan has experienced two long-lasting population booms over the past four cen­turies. The first dates from the 17th century, the other – the second half of the Meiji period (1868–1912). Their historical and social consequences turned out to be completely different – due to the fact that these periods had cardinal differ­ences in the picture of the world. During the era of the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1867), Japan was a closed country, and the mental constructs of this time were not designed for “development”, “progress” and expansion. The ideal was the absence of change in any area of ​​life. All problems were solved exclusively with the help of internal resources. As for the Meiji picture of the world, the idea of “progress” and “development” was embedded in it, and the country's entry to the “world” culture and civilization made it possible and even necessary to find ways to solve problems due to an external factor – migration and expansion.

The article is focused upon the Japanese philosophical science progress over the last twenty years. The author identifies the most significant and widely debated problems during the given period, observes its principal directions and the most prominent works. The following topics are in the center of consideration: modern vision of philosophy as a science, peculiarity of understanding the phenomenon of life, undertaken within the framework of two interconnected integral ap­proaches, defined as “philosophy of life” (seimei tetsugaku) and “philosophy of coexistence” (kyosei tetsugaku), as well as the latest achievements and vectors of expansion in line with the main philosophical areas – phenomenology, analytical philosophy, traditions of the Kyoto school, and Marxism. This is the first attempt to provide general analysis of the latest Japanese philosophical works published after 2000. The interest in Japanese philosophy is dictated both by the existence of a rich philosophical tradition in this country, by the high level of modern philosophical works, that are beginning to be actively translated into Western languages and are increasingly attracting the attention of scholars over the world, as well as by the situation of social demand for philosophical literature in the do­mestic market, additional incentives to steer its development. The aim of the study is to reconstruct a more complete picture of modern philosophical thought, which is marked by lacunae due to the limited availability of a significant body of research published in national languages. Its practical importance lies in the accumulation of an information and creation of an ana­lytical base, allowing to provide orientations for the expansion of scientific cooperation with modern Ja­panese philosophers. The bibliography covers the most important vectors and significant personalities.

The article examines the life and ideas of Kiyozawa Manshi (1863–1903), one of the leading Buddhist thinkers of Japan during the Meiji era. He actively par­ticipated in the processes of modernization of Japanese Buddhism, which took place at that time, and his works reflected all the characteristics of the transfor­mation of Buddhism: the definition of Buddhism as a doctrine based on per­sonal religious experience; in-depth attention to the inner world of the believer, rather than to ritual and dogma; constant correlation of Buddhism and Chris­tianity and resistance to the latter, considered as one of the tools for promoting the colonial rule of the West. The specifics of Kiyozawa’s philosophical thought within these processes were determined by the fact that he professed Shin Bud­dhism, a branch of Japanese Buddhism based on the veneration of the Buddha Amida, who in immemorial times took a vow to save all those who believed in him. Against the background of rapid socio-political and spiritual changes that accompanied the adaptation of Japanese society and Japanese Buddhism to modern conditions, Kiyozawa Manshi’s personal path took him from a philo­sophical understanding of Buddhist teachings to a deep personal faith. Evidence of this was Kiyozawa’s dying will, the essay My faith (Waga shinnen). This lit­tle work is remarkable in two respects. On the one hand, Kiyozawa describes the general mechanisms of religious faith with the objectivity of a researcher, using his characteristic method of deep introspection. On the other hand, the es­say My faith can be called one of the outstanding examples of a personal con­fession of faith. The translation of the essay “My faith” is given in the final part of the article.

The article analyzes the significance of the death penalty in the criminal law of early medieval Japan based on historical and legal sources, its evolution and characteristics. It is widely believed among researchers that the death penalty was abolished completely in the Heian period. The death penalty was not used for 346 years following the execution of Fujiwara no Nakanari in 810, until it was revived during the Hogen rebellion (Hogen no ran, 1156). Further the author analyzes the position which developed in the Heian Japan after introduction of the moratorium on capital punishment, focusing on examples of the use of the death penalty in Japanese criminal law in the 9th – first half of the 12th cen­turies. Originally it was only an execution procedure for punishing intruders, and an integral part of the judicial system during the Asuka and Nara periods, but in the Heian era, the death penalty turned into a large-scale ceremonial action, reg­ularly held in the market square of the capital's city of peace and tranquility. It was a spectacle both for noble persons and for commoners, which became a credential sign of the triumph of the law over iniquity, a symbol of dishonor for dangerous criminals.

This article is a study of the main directions of the contemporary analytical polit­ical philosophy in the context of the idea of polyphony (pluralism) and related problems of historicism and relativism. This approach, on the one hand, solves the problem of embedding Russian philosophy into the global semantic context, on the other, it allows to identify the philosophical foundations of Western liberal theories of the second half of the twentieth century, the main metaphysical as­sumption of which is diversity. The article analyzes the commonality of world­view positions of the key directions of the analytical political philosophy and the Russian philosophical tradition. It is shown how the combination of Western and domestic conceptual attitudes allows representatives of modern philosophy to understand traditional socio-philosophical problems in a new way: rational disagreement, pluralism of values, the problem of manipulation, the basis of moral judgments, the problem of political justification and consent. J. Gray’s concept of ‘temporary agreement’ is analyzed in the context of polyphony and pluralism. The impact of antinomianism of the Russian thought on the neo-Hobbesians D. Gauthier and K. Baier is examined. The main points of the con­cepts of ‘collective rationality’ by C. McMahon, D. Schmidtz, J. Waldron, P. Pet­tit, and S. Hurley are revealed in the context of the problem of intersubjectivity (M. Bakhtin). J. Habermas’s political and philosophical ideas – public discourse, justification, and deliberation – are studied in the context of the value conflict problem. A comparative analysis of the ‘public justification’ (G. Gaus), of the ‘objective horizon of values’ (I. Berlin), of the concept of ‘Other’ (Bakhtin) is conducted. In the context of historicism, which is expressed in the understanding of the man as a historical, self-creating being, whose needs changed along with changes in self-consciousness, the author analyzes the relationship among A. Kojeve’s, M. Bakhtin’s, I. Berlin’s ideas, deliberative democracy and justifi­able liberalism. Historicism manifests itself in a constant conversation with a personified addressee or ‘second subject’ within which the ideas of the histo­rian of philosophy and the positions of the political philosopher are formulated.

The article examines the worldview of the 18th–19th centuries developed by three contemporaries. The philosophy of Immanuel Kant is placed at the center of the worldview, in relation to which the views of Alexander von Humboldt represent a return to Cartesianism, and the views of Carl Friedrich Gauss – an appeal to the future, to the theory of relativity of space and time. I. Kant taught that Euclidean space is, as the critique of pure reason asserts, the form of our contemplation, prescribed to every possible experience. For Humboldt, the world is fully measurable within three-dimensional Euclidean space. Gauss, on the other hand, thinks of Kant further, theoretically admitting and mathematically calculating the various possibilities of conceivability of space, thus the world for him is more relative, fiction, or a beautiful dream. Space is folded, curved and very strange. Cartesianism and the relativism of both scientists also extend to their ethical concepts: for Humboldt, man is a machine of “highest skill” designed to serve humanistic goals; for Gauss, human behavior admits of accidents and exceptions, although it did not reach the proper rationality and does not deserve attention, but yet, genius is possible. The personal characteristics of both scientists, as well as the connection with their epoch are revealed. Humboldt appears as a humanist, and Gauss as a misanthrope. It is concluded that the worldview is not one-dimensional, but includes the past, present, future of science, and also allows for mystery, chance, mystical elements present in culture.

Despite the obvious multifaceted nature of Sufism, three main doctrines are common to this trend: the doctrine of the Sufi way of knowing the Divine truth, trust in God and the doctrine of holiness, which contributed to the formation and widespread dissemination of the cult of saints. Universal concepts and defini­tions of the stages of the mystical path are “state” and “station”. The relationship between these concepts, their qualitative and quantitative characteristics, their hi­erarchy within the classification schemes built in the course of the centuries-old history of Sufism, do not fit into a single model due to the individual living and perception of this path by the mystic. The way is to leave your own world and enter the Divine world. The wanderer must approach the Almighty, dissolve in Him. Representations of the Way are an integral part of the seeker's mind – even if he believes that no way exists in principle.

The instability of modern civilizational development and the growing risks of constructive socio-anthropological dynamics pose new challenges for philosophical knowledge. The article is devoted to the systemic problem of digitalization of education and the understanding of cognitive risks. The research methodology is based on philosophical, psychological, pedagogical and information technology approaches to the process of digitalization of education, determining the nature and forms of manifestations of cognitive risks. The authors rely on numerous foreign and domestic concepts of informatization (digitalization) of education and focus on several types of risks of the cognitive sphere of students: information over-saturation, devaluation of memory capabilities, reduction in the level of critical thinking. The article emphasizes the probabilistic nature of these cognitive risks, defined by a set of scientific, methodological, organizational, methodological, psychological and pedagogical factors and individual personality, psychophysiological characteristics of students who are vulnerable to these risks to different degrees. The result of the study is a proposal on ways to level the cognitive risks of digitalization of education. The authors call for a balanced strategy and the consolidated work of all subjects of the education system in order to achieve the formation of a safe communicative and educational environment.

A process of creation of India’s image by the Bengal Renaissance intellectuals (from Rammohun Roy to Rabindranath Tagore) is analyzed in the article based on phenomenological approach and hermeneutics of the thinkers’ texts. A phe­nomenon of invention of native country’s image is a special result of ‘Discovery of India’ (Jawaharlal Nehru’s term) in many-sided interaction with Other, first of all the West. The process is the intellectual construction of a whole conception on India as ‘our own’ geographical and civilizational space with general tradi­tion, culture and history. A use of comparative, historical and axiological meth­ods along with ‘ideal type’ (M. Weber) method allows to invent two-fold image of ideal and real India. The ideal one unites meanings of India’s being in history, the goals of human, society and culture, the real image opens a number of prob­lems, evils and failures in the present social life and in history, along with real dignities and achievements. The Bengal thinkers have created ‘imaginary’ (B. Anderson) India in their representations, as attractive by her humanity, toler­ance and peacefulness; with high goals of harmony, morality and love. The ‘ideal’ in India was detected first of all for the compatriots as a base for self-re­spect and dignity and secondly for the entire world. ‘Reality’ in India had ap­pealed active change and constructive work for social renaissance.