Japanese Journal of Religious Studies

Nanzan University
Some Observations on the Sociology of Religion in Japan [with Rejoinder] [with Reply]
Author(s): Kei'ichi Yanagawa, Yoshiya Abe and Jan Swyngedouw
Source: Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Mar., 1978), pp. 5-36
Published by: Nanzan University
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Some Observations on the Sociology
of Religion in Japan
YANAGAWA Kei'ichi and ABE YOSHIYA
An overview of the sociological study of religion in Japan was

given by ProfessorMorioka at the Seventh World Congress of
Sociology in 1970. His paper, together with a well-selected
bibliography of Japanese works on the sociology of religion, has
been reprinted in his Religionin changingJapanesesociety(1975a).
The present paper, accordingly, will attempt to be analytical
and suggestive rather than descriptive.
It may be relevant, however, to begin by mentioning those
academic institutions and societies where work on the sociology
of religion is being done.
Although there is no specific chair in the sociology of religion
at any academic institution in Japan, a considerable amount of
research is being done at the University of Tokyo, Tokyo University of Education, Tsukuba University, Kyushu University,
Tokyo Metropolitan University, Sophia University, Keio University, etc., either in departments of religious studies or in those
of sociology or anthropology. Among research institutes, the
National Museum of Anthropology at Osaka, the Southeast Asia
Area Studies Center of Kyoto University, and the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture (Nagoya) are worthy of note.
Among academic associations, the Japan Sociological Society
(founded in 1923 with a present membershipof 1,500) organized
a Division of the Sociology of Religion three years ago with the
participation of about twenty members. Approximately fifty
researchers of the Japanese Society of Ethnology (founded in
1934 with a present membershipof 1,200) and ten of theJapanese
Reprinted by permission from pp. 365-86 of the Actes [de la] 14emeconfirenceinternationalede sociologiedes religions,exclusively on sale at the C.I.S.R. Secretariat (39,
The version presented here is
rue de la Monnaie-59042 Lille Cedex-France).
slightly emended.
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 5/1 March 1978

and ABE
YANAGAWA
Association of Religious Studies (founded in 1930 with a present

membershipof 1,000) are concerned primarilywith the sociology
of religion.
In addition, the Association for Sociology of Religion, formed
two years ago by a group of fifty young scholars, has been actively engaged in monthly meetings and has been carrying out
several field work projects.
Characteristics
of thesociologyof religionin Japan. There are traditionally two aspects to the study of religion in Japan. The first
involves the attempt to understand non-native theories of the
sociology of religion - especially those of Western Europe and
the United States. The translation and interpretation of the
theories of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim began before 1945
and has continued up to the present. Japanese scholars are
extremely sensitive to recent European and American trends in
the sociology of religion, as is indicated by the fact that works by
Western scholars are translated in rapid succession: Thomas
O'Dea's Sociologyof religion(1966) in 1968, Bryan Wilson's Religioussects(1970) in 1972, Robert Bellah's Beyondbelief(1970) in
1973, Clifford Geertz's Islam observed(1968) in 1973, Thomas
Luckmann's Invisiblereligion(1967) in 1974, Talcott Parsons's
Socialsystem(1951) in 1974, Victor Turner's Ritualprocess(1969)
in 1976, etc.
The second aspect falls within the domain of empirical research
into Japanese religion. In this Japanese scholars have made an
effort to be true to European sociological theory and, further, to
apply it to their analysisofJapanese religiousphenomena. They
continually ran into difficulties, however, relating to the point
that there was, within the European theories, an aspect they
found difficult to deal with: the classical subdivisionsof (western)
religious sociology, churchand sect,clearly do not apply to Japanese religion. Thus it was in the handling of these fundamental
concepts that the difficulties presented themselves.
What is the origin of the difficulties? First of all, there has
6
JapaneseJournal of Religious Studies 5/1 March 1978

Sociology of Religion in Japan
never developed a "church-type" institution comparable to the

Catholic Church of Europe at any time in Japanese history. The
established religion during the Tokugawa period (1600-1867)
was nominally Buddhism, but it was far from monolithic in
nature. Some thirty distinct hierarchicalordersor shilha(roughly equivalent to "denominations") existed in parallel. These
Buddhist orders, furthermore,were in competition, each seeking
the patronage of the shogunate, a desire that made them subject
to political influence and authority.
During the period between the Meiji Restoration (1868) and
the end of World War II (1945), State Shinto may appear to
have been the established religion. But State Shinto did not
claim even to be a religion; thus, there was no established
"church" during this period either. As there was no church as
such, there was no development of sects in the Japanese social
setting.
If the lack of a native "church-type" institution as an object
of research was one stumbling block in the development of the
field, another was the attitude of Japanese sociologists toward
the field itself.
The intellectual legacy of Tokugawa Confucianism has been
the neglect of religion among Japanese intellectuals. Confucianism expressesno belief or even interest in the supernatural.
Its intellectual descendants, among them social scientists, find
their concern lies more in questions of social class. Marxism
has exerted considerable influence in this connection.
Thus sociologistsas a whole neglected the sociology of religion.
What interest they had in western theories of the sociology of
religion did not lead them to examine the religious systems of
their own nation. The tendency to be rather intellectually cool
to religion is not a reflection of any modern trend toward secularization. It represents,rather, a continuation of the Confucian
intellectual legacy in Japan. The few social scientists who dealt
seriouslywith questionsof religious belief were Christians,among
them Otsuka Hisao, Morioka Kiyomi, and Ikado Fujio.

and ABE
YANAGAWA
Japanese religion does not place great emphasis on belief.

The same person can be at the same time both Shintoist and
Buddhist, a phenomenon that is constantly encountered. The
total number of adherents to the various religious organizations,
according to the statistics reported to and tabulated by the Religious Affairs Section of the Agency for Cultural Affairs (1972),
is roughly double the total population of Japan. Little emphasis is placed on faith or dogma. Religion in Japan may be
regarded as the sign of the social group to which an individual
is affiliated. In place of the prayers of Christianity, rituals, in
the form of Shinto festivals (matsuri)or Buddhist funeral services
(sishiki), identify and characterize an individual's religious affiliation. It is clear, then, that Japanese religion is built on a
foundation very different from that of the west, especially of
Europe and the United States, which stress belief to a high
degree.
Given this difference, Japanese religion cannot be explained
in terms of western theory. In the face of this, there have appeared two approaches among those engaged in empirical research.
One is the intensive sociological study of new religious movements. Works representing this approach include those of
Oguchi lichi, Saki Akio, Takagi Hiroo, Murakami Shigeyoshi,
and Ikeda Akira, all of whom explain the new religions against
their social background, under the strong influence of Marxism.
While focusing research on new religious movements, Ikado
Fujio and Fujii Masao interpret the phenomena in terms of urbanization and organization theory. The popularity of new
religions as objects of empirical research may be attributed to
the fact that here the western theories of "sect" can be applied
with relative ease.
The second approach identifies the religion of the common
people with primitive religion and studies traditional religious
practices of rural areas while applying the methodology of anthropology which western scholars had used in their studies of
8

primitive religions. Among this group we can count the works

of Furuno Kiyoto, Hori Ichir6, Takenaka ShinjO,and Yoshida
Teigo. These works tend to give weight to shamanism.
Thus the areas in which western theories of the sociology of
religion were employed in empirical research into Japanese
religion have been limited to the emergence of new religions and
to the phenomena of the primitive level, with the use only of sect
theories and anthropological analysis.
Now let us look at Professor Bellah's phrase "civil religion"
(1970) and Professor Luckmann's phrase "invisible religion"
(1967). Since 1970, at the annual meetings of the Japanese
Association for Religious Studies, there have been several papers
dealing specifically with "civil religion" and "invisible religion."
Most papers express affirmation and even sympathy with these
views, primarily because the authors find in them much in common with the religious situation in Japan.
There certainly are various interpretations of the phrase
"civil religion," for example, as the ideal or model religion, or
(though it was criticized in the United States on this point) as
a kind of "natural religion" which could be interpreted as akin
to Japanese Shinto. Within Japan there have been several
conflicting interpretations of this concept. One reason for this
is that "civil religion" cannot be understood in terms of such
existing concepts as church or sect, even though it has its own
myths, rituals, and fundamental supporting convictions. Furthermore, even in the United States, which was thought to be
at the forefront of modern society, "belief," whether in civil or
individual religion, was not clearly defined.
Nonetheless, the impact made by redefining religion to include
"civil religion" and "invisible religion" was considerable. And
whatever the case regarding specific redefinitions, the fact that
these concepts wielded such influence and caused such a shock
in Japan illustrates the dependence of Japanese scholars on
westernmodels.

YANAGAWA and ABE
Ikado Fujio, influenced by this reconceptualization, has classified Japanese religion according to four levels: cultural, institutional, organizational, and individual (1974).
Cultural religion, according to Ikado, remains in the form
of social customs. For example, on New Year's Day, according
to the statistics of the National Police Agency, more than fifty
million people (about one half of the total population) pay visits
to Shinto shrines. At Bon,the BuddhistAll Souls' Day in August,
millions of urban workers rush back to their native villages on
the pretext of paying homage to their ancestral spirits. Thus
one might assume that the sacred cosmos inherent in Japanese
culture has been woven into social customs and social order.
Ikado claims that his concept of cultural religion approximates
the civil religion concept of Robert Bellah and that it reflects
the primitive cosmos of the native Japanese.
Be that as it may, cultural religion is invisible, and it appears
to function to maintain the solidarity of society. It may, however, function to challenge the established order of society at
critical points in history. Thus, for example, at the time of the
Meiji Restoration (1868), nativism exhibited such energy that it
reintegrated the nation by sentencing to death the then corrupt
established authority of the state.
The characteristics of institutional religion are found in its
function of maintaining identity and keeping people conservatively settled in an orderly system. Institutional religions in
Japan, according to Ikado, include the parish system of Shinto
and the household ties established between traditional Buddhist
temples and families. These institutional religions direct men's
activities within the set frameworkof society by means of festival
roles and the symbolic practices of funerals conducted according
to set rules. Institutional religion is synonymouswith "church"
in the west. Although it is recognized that occasional movements within institutional religion revive its function as a challenger of the establishment, the quintessence of institutional
religion is found in its function of maintaining social stability.
10

Whereas institutional religion is a system into which one is

born and in which he exists, organizational religion is a system
in which individuals, in accordance with personal concerns,
choose to participate. Typical examples of organizational
religion in Japan are the so-called "new religions"-S5ka
Gakkai, Rissh5 K6seikai, etc.-most of which grew up rapidly
in the process of urbanization during the post-World War II
period. The existence of fluidity in society is a prerequisite
for the formation of organizational religions. As organizational
religions approach individuals with emphasis on personal needs
and concerns, they tend to make up an association of people
from the same social class, thus becoming associational religious
bodies.
The concept of "individual religion," formed perhaps under
the influence of Bellah, Luckmann, Bocock, et al., is based on the
assumption that in diffused contemporary society, broken off
from the closed traditional communities, religion loses the integrating function it had in traditional society. A religious body
then becomes merely one of many ideological associations in a
situation in which participation in any form of religious activity is
guaranteed as "individual religion" under the system of separation of church and state. In the absence of any established
church which forcefully integrates a particular community,
religious culture has a bearing only upon the individuals who
voluntarily submit to a particular religion. These individuals
may seek after the meaning of life and show intellectual interest
in the religions, rather than devotion to a particular religion.
The fact that millions of people read PHP (Peace, Happiness
and Prosperity),a monthly magazine running articles on moral
guidance and expressing political opinion and economic criticism, or Innd Torippu("inner trip"), another monthly which
tends toward articles dealing with the meaning of life, attests
to this. PHP is published under the sponsorship of the owner
of the National Panasonic Electric Company and InndTorippuby
a publisher strongly under the influence of a new religion in the

11
YANAGAWA and ABE
Nichiren Buddhist tradition, but even the latter espouses neither

religious dogma nor an evangelical campaign. Thus Ikado
recognizes the existence of religious phenomena that do not
conform to previous views of religion.
Ikado's four-fold approach to Japanese religions appears to
cover all the main issues of sociology of religion in Japan, but
using a framework developed in the west. However, it cannot
escape a few criticisms.
First, he does not clarify whether those themes are peculiarly
contemporary or whether they represent a historical constant.
Second, one cannot be sure if he is gearing his analysis solely
toward the Japanese context or if he is tackling a universalproblem. In short, he has classified the problem but failed to present
an integral principle whereby one can explain the peculiarly
Japanese sociology of religion with a focus on contemporaneity.
Ancestorworship: Key conceptin the sociologyof Japanesereligion.
While Ikado presents institutional and organizational religion
as the visible part, cultural and individual religion as the invisible
part of Japanese religion, these classifications do not help explain the remarkable increase of academic research on festivals,
shamanism, and ancestor worship in recent years. With the
possibility in mind of a little contribution from the Japanese
sociology of religion to the enrichment of sociological theory in
the west, this paper will hereafter focus upon ancestor worship,
a point where a contemporary and uniquely Japanese problem
revealsitself.
We do so on the assumption that the integration function that
the "church" exercised in western societies has never been performed either by "institutional" or "organizational" religions
in Japan. Simply stated, the influence on society of the institutionalized religions in Japan has never been dominant. Rather,
the counterpart in Japan of the "church" in western societies in
terms of the core structure of society has always been and will
remain the ie or "household" in its peculiarly Japanese setting.
12

Thus the religiosity of the Japanese household comes to the fore

of discussion and, accordingly, questions relating to ancestor
worship and its symbolic expression.
Take the example of Buddhism. After it was introduced to
Japan, it lost most of its universalist tenets and became closely
tied to ancestor worship. Historian Tamamuro Taij6 aptly
calls Japanese Buddhism the Buddhism of funerals (1963). In
the Japanese Buddhist structure, all members of the household
are tied to a family temple through the medium of ancestor
worship. The relationship of all the temples to their shiha
resembles a family structure. That is, the structure of a shlha
is maintained through the medium of instructionallineage among
the priests. Hence in Japanese Buddhism the principle of renouncing this worldly order, represented by the household,
has given way to an alternative cultural form based on the household system.
There has been much dispute concerning the origins of ancestor worship, whether it is native to Japan or was imported from
China. But leaving this aside for the moment, let us broadly
define what we mean by Japanese "ancestor worship." In
accordance with Nakane Chie's characterizationof the Japanese
household, ancestor worship may be defined as those beliefs
held and rituals practiced by the living concerning the disposition of the spirits of dead members of a household community
related by the right of succession and the belief in perpetuity.
It is less dependent on blood ties than the ancestor worship of
China and elsewhere (1973).
One must realize that as a sociological concept, the ie or
Japanese household representsa particular social system and not
a universally applicable concept like "family." The Japanese
household is a particular and peculiar institution based upon
Japan's traditional social structure. Its peculiarities are marked,
according to It6 Mikiharu, by emphasis on the legitimacy of
genealogy and on its perpetuity (1974).
The Japanese household is of course no more devoid of blood

13
YANAGAWA and ABE
ties than the family. But while blood ties are essential and
unavoidable elements, even more crucial is genealogy, which
consolidates the particularity of the household. Legitimate
genealogy is the basis on which the perpetuity of a household
is secured. Unlike a family where total changes take place
with the shift of generations, a household is trans-generational
and continues to exist from past to future generations. A household is identified by various symbols, such as peculiar ways of
doing things (kaffi), household name (kamei), household rules
(kaken),and, above all, its ancestors. These symbols, particularly the ones related to ancestors,reflect the religious character
of the household and, in conjunction with the genealogy and
perpetuity of the household, form the structural core of ancestor
worship.
Ancestor worship, on the other hand, is made tangible through
the enshrinement of memorial tablets (ihai) in the ancestral
altar (butsudan)of each household. Ceremonies are held on
specific days-the spring and autumn equinoxes, Buddhist
All Souls' Day, the memorial days of the ancestors' death, etc.
-and they confirm symbolically the relation between the living
members and deceased ancestors of the same household. The
household thus provides the institutional structure of Japanese
ancestor worship.
Researchon ancestorworshipin Japan. Ancestor worship has been
one of the major themes of debate among politicians and political ideologues. For those involved in the making of the Civil
Code in the late nineteenth century, establishment of the Japanese concept of the household community was of fundamental
importance in representingthe traditionalJapanese value system.
The Civil Code of 1896 stipulated that the right of succession to
a house consists of ownership of the genealogy, ceremonial utensils, and tombs. At the time of this law, there was already a
serious confrontation between the proponents of the traditional
household institution and champions of westernized individual
14

rights. This provision is no less than a pennant for the victory

of the traditional view, and it is a legal acknowledgment of the
religious character of the household. When the Civil Code
was totally revised after World War II under the influence of
the American Occupation, the household lost its place as a legal
institution in favor of the family. Nonetheless, the revised Civil
Code of 1947 retains a provision stating that the ownership of
genealogy, ceremonial utensils, and tombs is inherited by the
person whom custom designates as the sponsor of ancestor worship. It can be said that although the revision of the Civil Code
during the postwar period abolished the household as a legal
institution, it could not deny the household as a religious institution. Rather, lawmakers thus made it clearer that the household and ancestor worship were inseparable.
While lawmakers and lawyers were forced to become aware
of the religious character of the household, they refrained from
involvement beyond the boundary of religion and law. Anthropologists esteemed religious traditions closely related to households and accepted them as a matter of course, but failed to
question the intrinsic religiosity of the household. Sociologists,
as stated earlier, did not pay much attention to religious matters
and generally lacked a religious perspective. Only in recent
years has some noteworthy sociological research on ancestor
worship been done.
In sociological research on ancestor worship, two contrasting
trends are evident. One may be called comparative and the
other nativistic.
Typical of the former type is the research of Nakane Chie
and Morioka Kiyomi. They have a common tendency to
observe Japanese social institutions in the light of western sociological theories and find the domain of Japanese values in the
household system.
Nakane, for example, with her "vertical society" theory (1970),
compares the household structure and ancestor worship of the
Japanese with those of the Chinese, Koreans, and Indians. She

15
YANAGAWA and ABE
identifies its uniqueness as the emphasis on genealogical line of

succession rather than on blood lineage. She points out the
uniquely Japanese characteristic that almost all religious activities including ancestor worship are tied up closely with the
household. Such religious symbolism, she feels, filled the need
for group identity in a society that failed to form patrilineal
descent groups. Hence the context in which the Japanese household relates to a larger village community and then to a pseudofamily state, while in societies where patrilineal descent groups
exist (as in India, Korea, and China), households relate only to
another level of larger households.
Meanwhile Morioka, in his renowned research on Shin Buddhism and the household system, developed the "household
community" model (1962). He notes that, following the lead
of the reform process of Japan's polity during the Meiji Restoration and the American Occupation, the familial and religious
institutions of the Shin sect organization had changed direction
from identification with one another to structuraland functional
separation. This change notwithstanding, the extension of the
household system into the sphere of religion was a general characteristic of all Buddhist sects in Japan and a reflection of the
basic sociological pattern common to all of them. The coincidence of these two institutions is peculiarly Japanese and in
Morioka's view is "one of the principal drawbacks of Shin [=
Japanese] Buddhism as a possible world religion" (1975a,
p. 97).
In both Nakane's vertical society theory and Morioka's household community model, the idea is evident that through the
household institution, Japanese religious bodies, up to and
including emperor worship, have been created and established
as social and religious systems. It is clear that the Japanese
concept of household community is of fundamental importance
in the Japanese value system, and that while continuing comparison with foreign systems is worthwhile, the household community should be studied with the special nature of the ancestor
16

concept in mind.
The second trend is based on the idea that the ancestorworship
model the west provides does not adequately cover Japanese
ancestor worship. The principal proponent of this view was
Yanagita Kunio, who expressed his own original ideas (1970).
He focused his research on ancestor worship as based on the
household, and thus his works may be credited as a contribution
to the sociology of religion.
If ancestor worship is a socio-religious phenomenon based
on the relationship between the ancestorswho founded a household and the offspringwho can claim legitimate genealogy from
the ancestors, and on the presupposition of the formation and
perpetuity of these households, the following three conditions
need to be established. First is the household as a social institution. From this it naturally follows that the concept of ancestors must differ between a society where the formation and
perpetuity of households is established as an ideal type and
another where it is not, such as a society based on the nuclear
family. Yanagita's view here is empirical, and he recognized
the constant rise and fall of households in actuality while denying
the once popular politicized platform of the unified family state
under the imperial household. Second is the religious foundation which supports ancestor worship. Only with the presence
of belief in ancestral spirits, and through the medium of this
belief, can offspring relate themselves to ancestors. Whereas
Japanese belief in ancestral spirits has much in common with
that of other East Asian peoples under Confucian influence, a
distinct difference is observed in the frequent formation of new
households in Japan. Simple and straightforwardobservation
of the actual situation distinguished Yanagita's approach from
that of traditional scholars as well as from that of western-oriented scholars. Third is the importance of household analysis
from the perspective of social conditions, because in practice
specific individuals and the households concerned cannot avoid
collective and social relations. In this connection the relation

17
YANAGAWA and ABE
of ancestor worship to the several households and to the local

village communities presents a subtle problem. Ancestral worship has a private character, as it is primarily a household affair,
but it cannot remain isolated from community life. Thus it is
that villages come to have Shinto shrines enshriningthe founder
of the village. Also, the fact that many local governments
customarily observe public holidays on the equinoxes, Buddhist
All Souls' Day, etc., proves that ancestor worship has now acquired a public character in addition to its originally private
character.
In short, Yanagita's approach to ancestor worship is empirical
and participatory. In his own statement: "Imagining that
my spirit will remain on earth after death is very pleasant for me.
Perhaps it is because I am a Japanese. If possible I would stay
in this land for eternity and hope to observe from some humble
hilltop a little more growth of culture and a little more contribution of learning to this society" (1969, p. 561). Yanagita's
posture is thus nativist and particularist. At the same time,
being participatory, he was able, we can say, to transcend the
spell of the theories of western sociology of religion.
Delving into Yanagita's approach more theoretically, Sakurai
Tokutar5 (1977) recognizes three types of Japanese ancestor
images. (1) Directly experientialand concreteimagesof ancestors.
When the head of a household dies, in some parts ofJapan people
refer to him as having become an ancestor. In the days when
,establishing a new household was strictly controlled and when
the responsibility of the head was high, the authority of the
household head was such that contact with him could prepare
the way for the formation of a concrete image for ancestral worship. (2) Indirectlyexperientialand idealisticimages of ancestors.
Images of ancestors older than the great-grandfather, persons
with whom physical contact was not feasible, can be formed only
through diaries, portraits, clothes, genealogy, related documents,
etc. The spirits of these ancestors, already pacified by repeated
ceremonies, are by definition divine beings. After the process of
18

transformation from dead spirit to ancestral spirit to ancestral

divinity, the image of the ancestral spirit, as its directly experiential and concrete image diminishes, becomes only indirectly
experiential and idealistic. (3) Ideologicaland abstractimage of
ancestors. In local communities there are often formed clan
groups based on the link of common family divinities, though
historical claims as to the actual founder of the clan are not
necessarily clear. The ancestral images of directly or indirectly
experiential formation now recede in importance as abstracted
and alleged mythology become dominant. Typical examples
include the myth in many households of descent from the imperial household and the more recent ideology of a household
state invented and enforced by the political establishmentfor the
sake of indoctrinating the populace in the legitimacy of imperial
rule. That is, the household state thesis related the ancestral
deity of the imperial household to people's household ancestors
by means of an abstract and ideological ancestral image.
Sakurai's view, in summary, is very much like that of Yanagita. Through the interrelationship of the three ancestral images characterized above, ancestor worship integrates, on his
view, the entire system of Japanese cultural traditions.
Ancestorworshipandsocialcrisis. If ancestor worship is the most
fundamental element in the integration of Japanese society,
what is its relation to social change ? Some insightfulobservations
concerning this matter are to be found in the works of Robert
Smith, Morioka Kiyomi, and Fujii Masao.
In the light of the remarkable transformation of the Civil
Code and the consequent approval of the nuclear family concept
since the end of World War II, the mode of relationships between the living and the dead appear to have changed considerably. Robert Smith's unique survey of memorial tablets (ihai)
discloses a fairly recent and increasingly common trend, namely,
that of venerating nonlineal tablets. He believes this practice
constitutes the opening wedge of family- centered as opposed to

19
YANAGAWA
and ABE
household-centeredancestor worship (1974).

Morioka, on the other hand, finds a functional relation between urbanization and ancestor worship. The number of
household members radically declined after 1955 while, simultaneously, the number of households increased sharply, particularly in the three major metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Osaka,
and Nagoya. According to Morioka, whether a household
possesses a Buddhist altar is closely related to whether it has
experienced a funeral, as indicated by the results of his 1967
survey of Tokyo suburbs (see table 1).
TABLE 1
BUDDHISTALTARS IN SUBURBANTOKYO HOUSEHOLDS
Type
Local multigenerational
Local nuclear
Neolocal multigenerational
Neolocal nuclear
% with
% with
Funeral Experience
Buddhist Altars
89
97
54
43
73
100
38
SOURCE: Data adapted from Morioka (1975b, p. 102).
An extreme case of the adaptation of ancestor worship is

revealed in the construction of Buddhist statues made out of
human ashes. At Isshinji temple in Osaka and several other
places, hundreds of thousands of urns containing cremation
ashes are dedicated. Many hold about one-third of a given
person's remains, the main portion being buried in the household tombs, but some two-thirds are urns offered to the temple
as the final and only resting place of the remains of the dead.
When the number of urns reaches about 50,000 (or 200,000,
depending on the time involved), the temple has their contents
crushed into power and used to make Buddhist statues. This
practice exists at several places in urban areas of the Kansai
district.
This way of dealing with the remains of the dead reveals the
belief that the dead always need a place to rest, but not neces20

sarily in the same household in which he or she lived. As proven

by the fact that many of those who bring in the urns cannot be
reached afterwards, the dead become anonymous upon being
crushed and pasted into a bone statue. This is exactly the
opposite of being enshrined in the household Buddhist altar
with a specific memorial tablet and with daily service by living
members of the family.
As Fujii observes (1974), this practice may symbolize one
effect of urbanization, namely, dissolution of ancestor worship
through the religious uprooting of people from their native
households. One could equally well regard this practice as another form of ancestor worship, one that retains perpetuity but
abandons genealogy. It is important to note, first, that such
practices started before the end of World War II and, second,
that urbanization began much earlier than ordinarily claimed.
With Herman Ooms (1975) it may be possible to affirm that
"ancestor worship has always been a particularly malleable
phenomenon, flexible to the extreme." We had better not,
then, expect a fixed form in ancestor worship, for it is amenable
to all kinds of challenges and reactions posed by changes in
society.
Given that ancestor worship is deeply imbedded in Japanese
society and at the same time responsive to social changes, it is
no wonder that ancestor worship has repeatedly become a focal
issue among Japanese intellectuals at the peak of each social
crisis.
When the first step was taken toward westernization and
modernization in the middle of the nineteenth century, there
was an explicit value conflict. The Meiji leaders proclaimed
the ideal of "western learning, Japanese spirit" (wakonyisai),
but this slogan already contained a contradiction between
universalism, which in sociological application led to individualism, and particularism, which maintained traditional community ethics based on the institution of the household and
ancestor worship. The invention and sponsorship of emperor

21
YANAGAWA and ABE
worship by the government may be regarded as an attempted

compromise between these conflicting principles under the umbrella of a new nation state.
The promulgation of the Meiji Constitution (1889) was an act
of fitting to the Japanese social system a standard agreeable to
the west. It was, in other words, an enactment of supreme law
that codified the principle of universalism. The counteraction to
this enactment was the promulgation of the Imperial Rescript
on Education (1889). This Rescript, from the person of the
emperor, ordained that the Confucian order of household
ethics be observed by all subjects, with the implication that the
emperor himself was supreme head of the symbolic household
that encompassed the entire nation. Thus particularism
rooted in the traditional household institution was established
as the guiding principle of social ethics. The preeminence of
particularism over universalism in Japan is demonstrated by
the fact that a pronouncement of the emperor, though without
legal binding power, exerted a much stronger influence on
people's thinking than the codified supreme law of the state.
A sense of crisis was heightened even further when the framing
of the Civil Code was undertaken. Though the first attempt
at making the Civil Code followed the principle of introducing
French law almost by direct translation, it could not gain public
consent. The second attempt, an endeavor to introduce
French law systematically under the guidance of Boissonade,
also failed. The counterattack of the nativists is well summarized in a statement by a former Tokyo Imperial University
professor,Hozumi Yatsuka: "With the making of a Civil Code,
the virtues of loyalty and filial piety must decay" (see Takeda
1976, p. 176).
It is no exaggeration to say that the subsequent ideological
crises in the modern period almost always gave rise to arguments
for strengthening household solidarity through revitalizing
ancestor worship. Toward the end of the nineteenth century,
when industrialization reached a level where a substantial
22

flow of population from rural villages to industrial cities took

place, the corruption of traditional morality and the spread of
Christianity were much feared. The arguments of such nativists as Hozumi Nobushige, law professor of Tokyo Imperial
University, prevailed and became the doctrinal basis of ethics
curricula in public school education. Hozumi argued in 1899
at the International Congress of Orientalists at Rome: "We
Japanese subjects descend from a single and great household,
where we gather together in the practices of ancestor worship.
Ancestor worship is derived from the adoration and veneration
of parents and grandparentsand, subsequently,from... extension
to those with whom we are distantly related" (1912).
In the 1930s, virtually on the eve of World War II, the influence of Marxism in Japan was at its height. Contending
with it were the emperor system and ultranationalism. One
of the representativetheoristsof this period was Watsuji Tetsur6,
who viewed belief in a universal religion like Buddhism as leading to the destruction of the national religion of ancestor worship. In an essay on the Japan of the 1930s Watsuji states that
"utilitarian individualism" (to use Bellah's term [1976]) was
the motive force in the building of modern Japan, but it is here,
as noted before, that he sees the great crisis point of the modern
period. Further, he sees the growth of disregard for the spirit
of self-sacrificeas an expression of the sense of crisis (1935).
In the chaotic situation after World War II arguments championing ancestor worship were again revitalized. The works
of Yanagita are typical products of this period. And now again
in the 1970s we are flooded with a great many arguments on
ancestor worship, for example, by Sakurai, Morioka, Fujii, et al.
The academic concern for ancestor worship that has recently
arisen in Japanese sociology of religion circles is significant, we
believe, precisely in this connection.
Someconcludingremarks. There is one school of thought which
states that Japan has not yet reached the stage of secularization.

23
and ABE
YANAGAWA
There is another which holds that Japanese religion was in a

sense secularized from the very outset and thus that the current
"secularization," being redundant, has no actual effect. Whichever the case may be, the "secularizationof institutional religion"
was not of great consequence in Japan.
From the point of view of the sociology of religion, the current
problem of ancestor worship in Japan parallels, we believe, the
growth in importance, in Europe and the United States, of the
theme of "secularization."
Problems relating to ancestor worship were extensively discussed from the start of Japan's westernization. However,
the problem was handled by political ideologues, ethnologists,
and philosophers, not so much by sociologists of religion. Only
in recent years has the issue become an object of serious research
by Japanese sociologists of religion. It almost seems as if research on this particular problem, so deeply rooted in Japan's
cultural tradition, needed a maturation period before any sociologist of religion could tackle it.
In research on a society in which "churches" and "sects" are
difficult to identify, problems of a fundamental nature cannot
be explored merely by the use of such data as the number of
church members, the attendance rate at weekly services, or the
amounts of donations to the "churches" or "sects." What we
have attempted to suggest in this paper is simply that, when it
comes to sociological research on a society in which there are no
religious institutions comparable to those regarded as central in
the west, one needs: (a) to identify target institution(s), and (b)
to construct a theoretical frameworkappropriate to the object(s)
of study.
If there is any socio-religious phenomenon in Japan comparable to secularization in the west, it certainly is not the commonly studied institutional religions of Buddhism, Shinto, or
Christianity. It is something else, and as a matter of convenience we chose to focus here on ancestor worship. If the analysis and observationspresented in this brief paper offer any sugges24

tions to sociologistsof religion in the west, we will be more than

gratified.
REFERENCES
Agency for Cultural Affairs

1972
Japanesereligion: A survey. Tokyo: Kodansha International.
E @
ARUGAKizaemon
Introduction to the family system in Japan, China

and Korea. In Transactionsof the third world
congressof sociology4:199-207.
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Maki to iwaijink6 , A--
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Lc
[Lineage groups
and their religious festivals]. Shakaigakukenkyiika
~jid
$ 1: 105-15.
kiy5 c
Senzo to ujigami flc L

[Ancestor and patron
~EJ
deity]. Minzokugakukenkyi2 JHbc5JE 32: 175-84.
BELLAH, Robert N.
1970
Beyondbelief: Essays on religionin a post-traditional
world. New York: Harper and Row.
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New
1976
religious
modernity.
In
consciousness
and
the
crisis in
The new religious consciousness,
Charles Y. GLOCKand Robert N. BELLAH, eds.

Berkeley: University of California Press.
Fujii Masao iItEitf

1974
Gendaijinno shink&koz5: Shiiky5fudo jinko no kodo
z.
1Jj)\Y,.
to shis5TXcf
[The belief-structure of contemporary Japanese

,*
people: Behavior and ideas of the religiously
HozuMI Nobushige
IKADO
1912
Fujio
1974
floating population].
Nit
Tokyo: Hyaronsha.
AncestorworshipandJapaneselaw. Tokyo: Maruzen.

9itq--i
L
[The era of godKamigoroshinojidai
L, Df*f
Nihon
Keizai
Shinbunsha.
Tokyo:
killing].
ITOMikiharu f+
1974
,_4
Sosen sfihai to ie ~~~f
[Ancestor worship

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and ABE
and household]. In K5za kazoku EgAA% [Family

studies series], vol. 8:12-27. Tokyo: K6bund6.
Thomas
LUCKMANN,
1967
The invisiblereligion: Theproblemof religionin modern
society. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.
MORIOKAKiyomi @lE)
1962
Shinshaikybdanto "ie" seido "RUIL& -FJ
, $IjJ
[The Shin Buddhist orders and the ie system].
Tokyo: Sabunsha.
1975a
Religionin changingJapanese society. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
1975b
Gendaishakaino minshaito shiaky5
MRRADc
,
& [People and religion in contemporary society].
Tokyo: Hy6ronsha.
NAKANE Chie *f=t
1967
Kinship and economicorganizationin rural Japan.
London: Athlone Press.
1970
Japanesesociety. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
1973
Kazoku, shinzoku bg *c, [Family and kinship].
In Shzky5gakujiten
[Encyclopedia of
'Rc-cA
OGUCHI
religious studies],
Iichi /J\n f'-. and HORI
eds.
Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku
Ichir5
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Shuppankai.
OOMs,Herman
1975
Review of Robert J. Smith, Ancestorworship in
contemporary
Japan. Japanesejournalof religiousstudies
2:317-22.
SAKURAI Tokutar6 K ft ay
1977
Reikonkan no keifu
[A lineage of
ccl
theories regarding the spirits]. Tokyo: Chikuma
Shob6.
SMITH,
RobertJ.
1974
Ancestorworship in contemporary
Japan. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
TAKEDA Chashfi
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Nihonjinno "ie" to shiky6 *AO
[[The
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5kjL'R
"house" and religion of the Japanese]. Tokyo:
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TAMAMURO Taij6c
1963
j
Sishiki bukky5
Afl
[Funereal Buddhism].
Daiharinkaku.
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WATSUJI Tetsura6
cL+c$c
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Zoku nihonseishinshikenkyiijtLFi53;EA
[More
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Iwanami.
YANAGITAKunio M1
1969
Tamashii no yukue occ c
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after death]. YanagitaKunioshii fEPFflU ~ [Collected works of Yanagita Kunio], vol. 15, pp.
553-61. Tokyo: Chikuma Shob6.
1970
About our ancestors: The Japanese family system,
Fanny Hagin MAYER and ISHIWARAYasuyo,
translators. Tokyo: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

27
A Rejoinder
Jan SWYNGEDOUW
Let me state first of all that I plead guilty to the charge of no
longer being able to suppress a feeling of allergy whenever I
come across the word "unique" as applied to things Japanese.
When, however, this alleged uniqueness is presented as "the
proper contribution of Japan to the enrichment of the outside
world," I must recant- and that right willingly. The paper
under discussion takes precisely this standpoint, and I feel enriched by it.
The main thesis of the authors, if I read it correctly, is that
(present-day) Japanese religion and society are so unique that
they cannot be adequately explained by means of western sociological concepts. In other words, the uniqueness of the object
of research requires a correspondinglyunique conceptualization
and methodology. The authors focus on the ie - and "ancestor
worship" as its religio-symbolic expression - as the principle
of integration of Japanese society, calling it the agency that has
functioned in a manner roughly equivalent to that of institutionalized religion in the west.
So bold an assertion cannot, of course, be given sufficient
substantiation in a limited number of pages. As a "search" it
involves much hesitation, and part of the contribution it hopes
to make is an invitation to what I would call "companionship"
in the task lying ahead. The few comments that follow are no
more than a humble response to this invitation and a continuation of researchit has for some years been my privilege to undertake together with Messrs. Yanagawa and Abe. These comments are also questions directed to myself.
That religion in Japan differs from religion in the west is a
truth nobody would dream of calling into question. But that
traditional western sociological concepts are unfit to explain
28

A Rejoinder
adequately the "unique" Japanese case is a matter that more

easily lends itself to discussion. Taken literally, this contention
seems to constitute an outright denial of the universal value and
applicability of at least some of the concepts we use in religiosociological research. This problem, which relates to the more
general one of particularism vs. universalism, has of course
haunted our discipline for many a year, and a simple solutionfortunately for the dynamics of science-is not yet in sight. But
I would like to add this observation: overemphasis on the
peculiarity of the Japanese case, both in its actual state and in
the conceptualization or framework this requires, seems to me
to involve an underestimation of the fact, not only that many
of the so-called typicallyJapanese elements bear a more universal
character than is usually admitted, but also that the reality of
western influences on Japanese society and ways of thinking,
steadily increasing in scope and intensity, presents at least a
possibilityfor making an approach in western terms to some
aspects of Japan's religious world. This matter is the more
relevant in view of the authors' intention to search out "contemporary" uniqueness.
Again, the authors' rather negative stance toward the applicability of western theories seems to result in a sort of self-refutation when they base their own thesis on the need to discover
a principle of social integration of a moral-religiousorder equivalent to (institutionalized) Christianity in the west. I wonder
if the assumption of such a principle as a starting point is not
already the application of a "western" theory, one that smacks,
moreover, of Parsonian influence. Indeed, if I may be allowed
to reverse my stand and take the side of the defenders of
uniqueness, I would like to ask whether "integration" means the
same thing for a highly diversified culture like that of the west
and a highly homogeneous culture like that of Japan. Before
trying to discover which agencies have functioned as integrators
ofJapanese society, I would like more informationon the peculiar
nature of the principle that integrates Japanese society and

29
Jan SWYNGEDOUW
culture and on the religious attributes of this principle. The

assertionthat religion is thekey to understandingsociety, as most
western sociologists claim, is based on the actual role Christianity played in the west. Whether something one can call
"religious" performedan analogous function in Japan, or whether the country of Japan with its almost homogeneous population
even needed a similar integrative principle is, to say the least,
a moot question.
Keeping in mind the point that the concept of "integration"
needs to be more clearly defined, we turn next to the question of
integrating agencies. On this point it is difficult not to agree
with the authors' contention that institutionalized religion did
not perform this role. If socio-religious studies have hitherto
been conducted in emulation of western models that attribute
such a role to institutionalized religion, they are certainly open
to revision. Yet it would be a mistake to infer that we are thereby released from the responsibility of carrying out research on
institutionalized religion in Japan - a mistake for which I cannot blame the authors, though they at least give me occasion to
point it out. On the contrary, do we not have here an excellent
opportunity to develop a non-western sociological theory of religious institutions? How is it, for example, that various religious
traditions have been able to live side by side, and what have been
their respective relations- and contributions-to an overarching principle of integration? My hunch is that these and
related questions can provide us with clues whereby to understand why the institutional specialization of religion in Japan
did not lead to its privatization--as happened, according to
Luckmann, in the west.
The suggestion that the ie and its symbolic expressionthrough
ancestor worship offer a key that may unlock the intricacies of
Japan's religious world is more than to the point-though I
shuddered a little at the remark that ancestor worship was
selected "as a matter of convenience." Yet it is precisely here,
I feel, that their argument does not, and perhaps cannot, avoid
30

A Rejoinder
ambiguity and thus leaves us somewhat in the dark. For example, it is not sufficientlyclear whether they are speakingprimarily
about the ie itself or about the ie structure as applied to society
as a whole. Again, the relation of the ie to ancestor worship,
and of both to the wider society, not to mention the traditional
connection between ancestor worship and Buddhism as the
"religion of the household," are but hesitatingly enounced.
Perhaps the need for greater clarity could be highlighted by
posing the following questions: Is the integrating agency the ie,
the ie structure, or its symbolic expression in ancestor worship?
And what does this agency integrate? Is it the household, the
local community, or the nation as a whole ?
Admittedly, the authors touch on all these different elements
by referring to various theories propounded by well-known
Japanese scholars They did not succeed, however, in organizing
them into a compact and convincing theoreticalframework. The
lurking ambiguity in the presentation comes to the fore particularly when they take up the subject of social change. After
having argued that "the core structure of [Japanese] society has
always been and will remain the ie," they seem to agree with the
opinion that, under the impact of contemporary social changes,
the ie is on its way out and that ancestor worship is consequently
taking on new forms. Logically this leads us again to the
question of the relationship between the ie and ancestorworship.
If, moreover, we take into account the apparently emergent
separation between the two, we are led to ask which is ultimately
the more fundamental integrating agency in Japanese society
and culture.
Should we proceed a step further and draw a conclusion the
authors refrain from, namely, that ancestor worship, when it
ceases to function as the religio-symbolical expression of the ie,
also forsakes its integrating role? Then we are left with the
same question presently posed with regard to western society:
if religion, whether in the form of ancestor worship as in Japan
or in the form of the church-centered institution traditional in

31
Jan SWYNGEDOUW
the west, is no longer able to provide a basis for the integration

of society, what happens, then, to society? Does it fall apart,
or do otheragencies take over? This problem, which some refer
to as the problem of secularization, is far from resolved.
32

Reply
YANAGAWA
Kei'ichi and ABEYoshiya
The main point of Dr. Swyngedouw's rejoinder seems to be
that in attacking European ethnocentrism we went to the opposite extreme and may have become guilty of Japanese ethnocentrism.
It was not our intention, however, to overemphasizeJapanese
"uniqueness" or in any way to deny scientific theory. Despite
our perhaps immoderate statement that "Japanese religion cannot be explained in terms of western theory" (p. 8), we simply
wished to point out that it is extremely difficult to analyze
contemporary Japanese religion by means of the church/ sect
model - except, of course, for the "new religions." We wanted
to say that it is impossible to gain a comprehensiveunderstanding
of Japanese religion within the framework of the church/ sect
model.
In replying to Dr. Swyngedouw we would like to clarify three
points. These points have to do with ancestor worship, ie and
ie structure, and integration.
Ancestorworship. As mentioned in our original paper, secularization in Japan cannot be understood as a crisis in organized
religion. It is true, of course, that secularization is causing a
number of problems in certain organized religious bodies such
as the Shinshti Otaniha (Higashi Honganji-ha) and the Nihon
Kirisuto Kyadan (United Church of Christ in Japan), but these
are internal problems and do not, we must emphasize, represent
a crisis of religion as a whole in Japan. In fact, owing to the
development of the "new religions," it may even be said that a
religious revival of sorts is taking place.
In raising the question of ancestor worship, our intention was
to point out that a significant change is occurring-invisibly,

33
YANAGAWA and ABE
as it were-outside the sphere of institutional religion. With

regrets for any unclarity that may have attended our statement,
we wish to call attention to the worksof such scholars as Hozumi
(mid-Meiji period), Watsuji (early Shawa period), Yanagita
(in the immediate postwar period), and several contemporary
students of religion on the sense of crisis over the decline or
change in ancestor worship.
In his work on the new religious consciousness Bellah points
up the growth of utilitarian individualism as over against the
decline of biblical religion, the result being a "massive erosion
of the legitimacy of American institutions" (1976, p. 333)-a
value crisis in American society. Watsuji, however, made
much the same point nearly fifty years ago when he called attention to the crisis in Japanese values occasioned by changes
in Japanese ancestor worship. In our paper, accordingly,
ancestor worship was viewed as a symbolic expression of changing values. Our purpose was not to define ancestor worship.
We merely wished to point out that the question of ancestor
worship is of concern to scholarswho treat it as a problem in the
secularization of Japanese religion.
le and ie structure. What Dr. Swyngedouw observed as regards
the ie and ie structureappears to be essentially a semantic problem. Dr. Swyngedouw, who is extremely well-versedin research
on Japan done by Japanese scholars, simply read too much
into the text. He took the metaphoric use of the ie model to
signify Japanese corporations or the nation as a whole. As we
used it, however, the ie model had a more limited range of application. What we had in mind was the more traditional definition of the ie not as a family (as may have seemed to be the case)
but as the institution that unites the living and the dead.
An important change is taking place, in fact, in Japanese
rituals for the dead; they are becoming mere memorials. We
remember an incident in which Japanese officials were deeply
shocked to observe an American Konk6ky5 "memorial service."
34

Reply
In ancestor worship the dead (regardednot as dead but as living

in another world) are not simply longed for or fondly recollected.
The ie serves as a point of interconnection between the two
worlds. The change to "memorial services" implies a fundamental change in the role of the ie, and it is for this reason
that the ie was taken up for consideration.
Integration. The problem of integration is tremendously important and is one to which we will have to give further
consideration. Dr. Swyngedouw asserts that since Japan is a
homogeneous country, the problem of integration should not
arise. This is not necessarily true. Perhaps we may take the
liberty of introducing to him a fifteen hundred-year-oldmaxim:
wa o motte,totoshito nasu("harmony should be your guiding principle above all else"). This idea is still applied today. True
though it is that Japan is homogeneous, it is equally true that
the integration of "cliques" (habatsu)into organizational wholes
is a constant problem in Japanese society.
Generaltheory. Last to be dealt with is the question of the contribution of our paper to general scientific theory. This matter
probably requires no further explication, but by way of clarifying our intention, let us take a hypothetical situation. Let it
be supposed that Christianity in the west is viewed not as one
church among other institutional religions but as the "family
religion" of its adherents. On this view the Sunday service
becomes not a gathering of faithful individuals but a gathering of
families. A decline in church membership or in the number
of worship services would indicate not that secularization has
taken over but that the "family" system of religion has disappeared.
The point of this illustration is to show that our referencesto
religion in the west and to the religious dimension in the family
were intended not to support some notion of Japanese "uniqueness" but to suggest the hope that the ideas at work in our study

35
YANAGAWA and ABE
may not be without relevance to the understanding of religion

in the west as well as in Japan.
36


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Some Observations on the Sociology

An overview of the sociological study of religion in Japan was

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Association of Religious Studies (founded in 1930 with a present