Japanese Religions, intended as an introductory guide to the religious traditions found in Japan today, together with their historical backgrounds, is also relevant to readers interested in comparative religions, politics, or international affairs. Topics include Shinto, Buddhism, new religions, Christianity, folk religions, and state religion.
Japanese Religions, intended as an introductory guide to the religious traditions found in Japan today, together with their historical backgrounds, is...
This study looks at Aum's claims about itself and asks why a religious movement ostensibly focused on yoga, meditation, asceticism, and pursuit of enlightenment became involved in violent activities. Reader places the sect in the context of contemporary Japanese religious patterns, discussing developments in Asahara Shoko's personality and teachings, Aum's millennialism and its developing hostility toward society, and compares Aum with other religious and political movements that turned to violence, both in Japan and elsewhere. He concludes that Aum is not unique, nor is it solely a political...
This study looks at Aum's claims about itself and asks why a religious movement ostensibly focused on yoga, meditation, asceticism, and pursuit of enl...
This study involves a fourteen-hundred-kilometer-long pilgrimage around Japan's fourth largest island, Shikoku. In traveling the circuit of the eighty-eight Buddhist temples that make up the route, pilgrims make their journey together with Kobo Daishi (774-835), the holy miracle-working figure who is at the heart of the pilgrimage.
Once seen as a marginal practice, recent media portrayal of the pilgrimage as a symbol of Japanese cultural heritage has greatly increased the number of participants, both Japanese and foreign. In this absorbing look at the nature of the pilgrimage, Ian...
This study involves a fourteen-hundred-kilometer-long pilgrimage around Japan's fourth largest island, Shikoku. In traveling the circuit of the eig...
In the light of the sarin attacks made by Aum Shinrikyo on Tokyo, this book describes the movement's history, examines the various conflicts it has been involved in, and discusses the content of Asahara's sermons and prophecies, all in an attempt to discover why the movement turned to violence.
In the light of the sarin attacks made by Aum Shinrikyo on Tokyo, this book describes the movement's history, examines the various conflicts it has be...
This text discusses how religion is being presented, represented and discussed on the Japanese Internet. Using examples from across the Japanese religious spectrum, it develops our understandings of religion and media and on how various parties are making use of new technologies.
This text discusses how religion is being presented, represented and discussed on the Japanese Internet. Using examples from across the Japanese relig...
The study of pilgrimage often centres itself around miracles and spontaneous populist activities. While some of these activities and stories may play an important role in the emergence of potential pilgrimage sites and in helping create wider interest in them, this book demonstrates that the dynamics of the marketplace, including marketing and promotional activities by priests and secular interest groups, create the very consumerist markets through which pilgrimages become established and successful - and through which the 'sacred' as a category can be sustained.
By drawing...
The study of pilgrimage often centres itself around miracles and spontaneous populist activities. While some of these activities and stories may pl...
Japanese Religions on the Internet draws attention to how religion is being presented, represented and discussed on the Japanese Internet. Its intention is to contribute to wider discussions about religion and the Internet by providing an important example - based on one of the Internet's most prominent languages - of how new media technologies are being used and are impacting on religion in the East-Asian context, while also developing further our understandings of religion in a technologically advanced country. Scholars studying the relationship of religion and the Internet can no longer...
Japanese Religions on the Internet draws attention to how religion is being presented, represented and discussed on the Japanese Internet. Its intenti...
Specially commissioned studies of popular pilgrimages - East and West, past and present, religious and 'secular - ranging from Shikoku (Japan), to Santiago de Compostela (Spain), Kosovo (Yugoslavia), Glastonbury, Anfield (UK), Flanders fields, Graceland and military pilgrimages in the USA. The book asks in what ways all these can be called pilgrimages and what their relation is to tourism and to entertainment, highlighting the enduring popularity not only of pilgrimage but also of saints and heroes.
Specially commissioned studies of popular pilgrimages - East and West, past and present, religious and 'secular - ranging from Shikoku (Japan), to San...
What role does religion play in contemporary Japanese society and in the lives of Japanese people today? Through a series of case-studies of religion in action - at crowded temples and festivals, in austere Zen meditation halls, at home and work, at dramatic fire rituals - it illustrates the immense variety, energy and colour inherent in Japanese religion while discussing the continued relevance and responses of religion in a rapidly modernising and changing society.
What role does religion play in contemporary Japanese society and in the lives of Japanese people today? Through a series of case-studies of religion ...
