Buddhism, which originated in India, was introduced into Japan in the
sixth century A.D. from Korea and China. Buddhism introduced ideas into
Japanese culture that have become inseparable from the Japanese worldview:
the concept of rebirth, ideas of karmic causation, and an emphasis on the
unity of experience. It gained the patronage of the ruling class, which
supported the building of temples and production of Buddhist art. In the
early centuries of Buddhism in Japan, scholarly esoteric sects were
popular, and the Buddhist influence was limited mainly to the upper class.
From the late Heian period (A.D. 794-1185) through the Kamakura period
(1185-1333), Pure Land (Jodo) and Nichiren Shoshu sects, which had much
wider appeal, spread throughout all classes of society. These sects stressed experience and
faith, promising salvation in a future world. Zen Buddhism, which
encourages the attainment of enlightenment through meditation and an
austere life-style, had wide appeal among the bushi, or samurai--the
warrior class--who had come to have great political power. Under the sponsorship of the ruling military
class, Zen had a major impact on Japanese aesthetics. In addition, as
Japan scholar Robert N. Bellah has argued, Buddhist sects popular among
commoners in the Tokugawa period encouraged values such as hard work and
delayed rewards, which, like Protestantism in Europe, helped lay the
ideological foundation for Japan's industrial success.
Buddhist funerary and ancestral rites are pervasive in Japan. Although
regular attendance at Buddhist temples is rare, partly because many
Buddhist sects do not observe community worship, there were in 1991 nearly
75,000 temples and 204,000 clergy. Buddhist as well as Shinto priests
marry, and often sons inherit the responsibility for their father's parish
at his death. The Nichiren school, based on belief in the Lotus Sutra and
its doctrine of universal salvation, was the largest sect in Japan in
1991, with 24,450,257 members. Its wide appeal is based on the broad range
of religious and social thought and the lay activities it incorporates.
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