K. M. University, India Christianity in the Land of Santhals: a study of Resistance and Acceptance in Historical Perspective(03U)

Takizawa, Katsuhiko

Tohoku University, Japan

The Transformation of Family Rituals in Mongolia: One History of Religion in a Modern Nomad Society(17O)

Mongolians obtained religious freedom with the collapse of socialism in 1990. Since then, the religious situation in Mongolia has experienced dynamic changes, such as the reconstruction of indigenous religions and inflow of foreign religions. Previous researchers, who focus at the level of religious organizations, have described these phenomena as "religious revival," "liberalization of religion," "globalization of religion," and so on. In opposition to them, I pay attention to the recent history of religious practices performed at the family level, which have been unofficially maintained throughout the socialist period, while the activities of religious groups have declined. At the same time, they also have been strongly influenced by the social conditions under the socialist system such as sedentarization, urbanization, and religious oppression. Thus, by putting the continuity of family rituals at the forefront of research, it will become possible to delineate the dynamic process of the religious situation in modern Mongolia.

Organized panel, English
Tam, Wai Lun

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China

Rethinking Religion from a Local and Rural Context: Towards an Alternative Way to Study Chinese Religion(17G)

Organized panel, English

Tam, Wai Lun

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China

Studies of Local Religion in Asian Context(17G)

Religion is not a native term in many Asian cultures. As Dubuisson (1998) claims, "religion" is a western construction, and a largely a Christian one at that, that was exported from the Christian west and applied to other cultures. Religious life in Asia unfolds not principally in the private domain but mainly in the public and civic arena. In such traditions there is no strict separation of the 'sacred' from the "profane," nor is there a rigid opposition between "religions." The latter is well illustrated by the total number of followers of religion in Japan which is two to three times more than the total population indicating that many Japanese adhere to two and sometimes even three religions (Reader, 1993). We, therefore, know that the forcing of western assumptions and categories on non-western traditions may distort the true picture or artificially create labels that do not correspond to observable reality. Do we have a competing model? How I construct a competing model on the basis of Asian cultural legacy? I suggest taking a local and regional approach and argue for a re-thinking of 'religion' in Asian context.

Organized panel, * Session Abstract, English
Tamaki, Mamoru

Nippon Sports Science University, Japan

The Doctrine of Six Shin-Shukyo (New Religious Organizations) and International Cooperation(07L)

In general, international cooperation is divided into international aid and international cross-fertilization , and is divided into Governmental and Non-governmental forms. The main subject of this study is the relief activities by Non-governmental Organizations, especially, of religious organizations. I will specifically examine the relation between goals, activities, organizations and relief movements, and doctrines, ideas of leaders, and the history of these organizations. The question of missionary work is, however, not addressed in this paper. The following six religious organizations are discussed: 1'SHOUROKUSHINNTOUYAMATOYAMA' - HEIWAICHIJIKIUNDOU (Movement of A Meal for Peace) 2 'TAIWAKYOUDAN' - "BANMINHUKUROKUJU" 3 'GEDATSUKAI' - "VIVA CAMBO" 4 'MYOCHIKAI' - "ARIGATOKU FOUNDATION" 5 'SHISHINKAI' - Aegis of Newar Culture in Nepal 6 'ZENRINKYO' - Support to HIBAKUSHA in Korea

Organized panel, Japanese
Tamaki, Nanako

Center for Information on Religion, Japan

An Analysis of News Coverage of Religious Issues in Japanese Television(03J)

This paper will analyze the TV news coverage of religious issues, which were aired on ground-based broadcasting from 1998 to 2004 in Japan. Religion-related news has been mainly about criminal cases, trials, and scandals of religious groups and members. Politics and war issues related to religion abroad, or traditional festivals in Japan are also common coverage. Other than these, characteristics and changes of the news coverage about religion and politics, funeral business, sightseeing on religious sites, religious practices, psychic counseling, and other interesting topics are also analyzed drawing upon TV programs about religion and spirituality aired in the same period. Through the findings, the paper will examine how TV media has depicted religion in contemporary Japan, and also consider the religiosity of Japanese people.

Organized panel, English
Tamaru, Noriyoshi

University of Tokyo, Japan

(16O)

Organized panel

Tamura, Takanori

Tsukuba Univesrity, Japan

How Does ITC Work and Not Work for Religious Counseling: - Cases of Tenrikyo and Konkokyo-(16T)

Today, if you google words like "email counseling," you get more than 130,000 hits. The trouble consultation and counseling using the Internet have started just several years ago in Japan. It became popular now, although both good points and weak points of it are being discussed. Although it is thought that the Internet trouble consultation is effective also for the means of propagation, the religious bodies do not seem to use it effectually. How can Internet trouble consultation be utilized for a religious body? Moreover, if there is a cause for the lack of its practical use, is it due to the nature of the Internet as a tool or does it belong to the religious organizations? In this presentation, we are going to take up the example of two churches, Tenrikyo and Konkokyo, to consider such problems.

Organized panel, English
Tanaka, Fumio

Taisho University, Japan

At the Forefront of Daoist Studies (1) Aspects of Daoist Philosophies(10H)

*chairperson

Organized panel, English
Tanaka, Kanoko

Komazawa University, Japan

How Buddhist Nursing May Contribute to the Study of Religions(16M)

One day at a hospital in Delhi, the chaplain, a friend of mine said to me, "You have no hesitation to pray, chant, and even learn the scriptures with Hindu, Jain, Sikh, and Muslim patients. Is it because you are a Buddhist ? I appreciate it, but cannot do the same; otherwise nobody should see me as a Christian." His words may suggest that the Buddha saw everyone's spiritual pains in the process of birth, aging, illness, and death, and took the best measures to overcome them, but never fixed any absolute dogma, or an "ism" because of his relative and flexible attitudes toward the diversity of the phenomenal world. Only if the patients find consolation in religion, a Buddhist will positively try to communicate with that person's religion, not out of curiosity but with respect and calmness on neutral ground.

Organized panel, English
Tanaka, Kenneth

Musashino University, Japan

"The Latter Days of the Law" Ideology among Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Proponents(03M)

Tao-ch'o (562-645) and Shan-tao (613-681) represent two of the scholar-monks who contributed enormously to the formation of Pure Land thought and practice in the 6th and 7th centuries. Before Pure Land Buddhism spread among the masses, its thought and practices (particularly the concept of Pure Land and the practice centered on oral recitation) were debated, argued, and finally accepted among the scholar-monks across a wide range of sectarian lineages. In that process, Pure Land emerged as one of the dominant schools of Buddhism in China. One of the main arguments for the legitimacy of its teachings was that "the latter days of the law" had arrived around 552 C.E. and that Pure Land was the most appropriate teaching for the time. This paper shall also attempt to explore the nature of their arguments within a comparative framework focused on eschatological beliefs found in Christianity.

Organized panel, English
Tanaka, Masamichi

Jinrui Aizenkai, Japan

Dialogue between Islam and Oomoto - The History of Interfaith Activity of Oomoto and Jinrui Aizenkai, Universal Love and Brotherhood Association(03H)

From the birth of Oomoto in 1892, the Foundress Nao Deguchi and Co-Founder Onisaburo Deguchi, preached that "God is essentially one," and "all religions spring from the same source." So from the beginning, interfaith activity has been an important Oomoto mission. In 1925, Oomoto established the World Religious Federation in Peking and created Jinrui Aizenkai, a religious peace movement that aims to establish eternal peace for all humankind. At that time, Naotaro Kumon, a Japanese Muslim, gave a lecture at Oomoto headquarters in Ayabe, which helped to deepen the understanding of each other's faith. Oomoto also began an affiliation with Tao Yuan and promoted relations with other religions in Asia and spiritual groups in Europe. Unfortunately, he was forced to suspend these activities twice because of suppression by the Japanese government. After World War II, Oomoto started afresh, and renewed its exchanges with various religious communities. In the 1970s, an exhibition of the art works of Oomoto's Spiritual Leaders, which traveled to various cities in Europe and North America, became the catalyst for an exchange with the American Episcopal Church. Oomoto also became a pioneer among Japanese religions in developing exchanges and dialogues with other world religions, especially with Islam in the Middle East. In 1991, Oomoto members met with the Grand Mufti of Syria, Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro, thus deepening the movement's exchange with Islam. Today, Oomoto continues to promote the union of all world religions and interfaith activities aiming at realizing world peace.

Organized panel
Tanaka, Motoo

Konko Church of Osaki, Japan

Activity of Konkyo for Peace(07L)

Konkokyo began congregations for peace and in memory memory of Hibakusha ("Atomic Bomb Victims") after WWII. The Japanese could not stop that war and, consequently, invaded Asian countries. Today, Konkokyo searches for self-understanding, soul-searching, and global coexistence. Today, the the North-South problem is a very serious one. This problem has led to a form of social pathology in northern countries, and to the global environmental problem, which is perhaps the greatest crisis of all humankind. The votary of KONKOKYO believes that it necessary for keeping world peace to search for the way of coexistence and co-prosperity through international cooperation with southern countries. Accordingly, KONKOKYO established the NGO KONKOKYO PEACE ACTIVITY CENTER in 1988. We have started to give support to education and living for impoverished children in South-East Asia. In this paper I would like to talk about our activities.

Organized panel, Japanese
Tanaka, Yutaka

Sophia University, Japan

God as the Locus of the World and the Ground of Human Freedom(02Q)

I will critically discuss Nishitani Keiji's arguments of "The Personal and the Impersonal in Religion" in his Religion and Nothingness. Comparing the Christian tradition of speculative mysticism or "panentheism" with the Zen Buddhist philosophy of "Nothingness," I will show that God as the Locus of the World is nothing but the transcendental Ground of Human Freedom and Subjectivity.

Organized panel, English
Tanatsugu, Masakazu

Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Japan

The Crossover between Religion and Medical Care(14J)

With the establishment of modern western medicine, a division of labor has taken place between religions and medical care, with the former being engaged in the salvation and awareness of the soul and the latter occupied with physical cure and treatment. Recently in Japan, these two separate fields have begun to cross over again. While religious healing was originally concerned with the wholeness of mind and body, medical care workers are now obliged to attend the dying and take care of their spiritual pains rooted in the insolubility of such basic problems as the significance of life and their raison d'être. Various forms of psychotherapy are gaining in popularity in place of certain declining religions, and medical care workers are expected to play the roles once assigned to traditional religious workers. What emerges from this consideration is the whole structure of human beings that includes a "spiritual" dimension as an indispensable ingredient.

Organized panel, English
Tanemura, Ryugen

University of Tokyo, Japan

Stupa Worship in Indian Tantric Buddhism(04M)

With the purpose of illustrating in detail some aspects of stupa worship described in later Indian Buddhism, this paper, mainly on the basis of the prescriptions given in the chapter 8 of the Kriyasamgrahapanjika, reconstructs the world of rituals concerning stupas. Although the former part of this section has already been examined by Benisti and Roth, the latter part, in which some noticeable elements intrinsic in Tantric Buddhism are attested, is yet to properly be explored. What this text gives us is an archetypical example of a culmination of the development of stupa worship in the Indian Buddhist world.

Organized panel, English
Tani, Sumi

Keio University, Japan

About the Universal Significance of the "Middle Way"-From the Point of View of Russian Religious Philosophy-(15Q)

V. Solovyev, a Russian religious philosopher of the nineteenth century, advocated Christian divine wisdom (Sophia), and called on us to straddle the "Middle Way" between two opposite principles. According to his ideas, two opposite polar principles, such as God and person or celestial eternal essence and earthly phenomenon, are simultaneously separate and indistinguishable from each other. I think that this position of regarding opposed categories not merely as one but as two at the same time, forms the core of the "Middle Way" and has its roots in the Christian doctrine of "God-manhood." However, if we compare this concept of the "Way" with other religious traditions, we can find some philosophical similarities in the Mahayana Buddhist idea of the Middle Way of "non-oneness/ non-duality." In this regard, we can state the following question: What kind of philosophical principle is this "Middle Way," which we can be found in Solovyev's thought as well as Mahayana Buddhism? In this paper, I examine anew the concept of the "Middle Way" in Solovyev's thought and consider its universal significance.

Organized panel
Tanigawa, Akio

Waseda University, Japan

The Transformation of the Burial System of Early Modern Urban Edo(04J)

Urban Edo's burial system during the early modern era was established upon three major periods: Kan-ei (1624-43), Kanbun-Enpo (1716-80), and Kyoho (1716-25). The form of grave markers and the structure of the burial institutions of the houses of generals and feudal lords became established during the Kan-ei period. Entering the Kanbun-Enpo period, with a change in the form of burial institutions of the graves of military generals, the grave styles from the middle ages disappeared, and there emerged the kamekan style grave of the hatamoto class of samurai. Then it was in the Kyoho period that the construction of mausoleums in the graves of generals and feudal lords ended, and stone grave markers began to be erected. The final establishment of Edo's burial system as a symbol of the status and social class of those entombed culminated with Edo's emergence as a metropolis, and reflected the existing social order.

Symposium, English
Tanigawa, Yutaka

Kyoto University, Japan

A "Modern" Monk in 19th Century Japan - Sada Kaiseki's Astronomical Research and his Rejection of Imported Goods –(10M)

This paper aims to argue on the "modern" recognition of Sada Kaiseki (1818-82), who studied Buddhist astronomy and refuted heliocentric theory. After the Meiji Restoration, appealing to the rejection of imported articles, he obtained popularity from a portion of the public. But we should focus on the fact that he doesn't simply refuse Western modernization, but received the "modern" of his own unconsciously. For example, he was famous for his cherished opinion that the use of a lamps would ruin the country. But instead, he recommended to produce the domestic imitative lamps as a substitute -- not to use the classical Japanese light andon -- and kept circulating his opinion to the public at many temples. I also deal with his astronomical operating model, media strategy, and the public's response to him, to reveal an aspect of the modernization of Japanese society and Buddhism in those days.

Organized panel, English
Taniguchi, Masanobu

Seicho-No-Ie, Japan

The Way of Realizing Peace through Faith(03B)

From the Seicho-No-Ie standpoint that "All (correct) religions teach the same truth" / " All religions emanate from one universal God" we will explain the principle of how different religions can coexist. Historically, conflict/wars borne from differences in religion, race, and nationality have been unending. However, transcending and going beyond these conflicts/wars, through such (case) studies such as an American brought up in a family of Protestant ministers embracing Seicho-No-Ie, which began in Japan, how in Brazil where Catholicism is considered to be nothing less than the state religion, Seicho-No-Ie is accepted by many Brazilians and Seicho-No-Ie and Catholicism coexist, and how in South Korea Where anti-Japanese sentiment ran high, one man's father believed in the Seicho-No-Ie teachings began in Japan and dedicated half his life to its propagation, we will clarify the principles that make this all possible.

Organized panel, English
Taniguchi, Shizuhiro

Ryukoku University, Japan

Heidegger Studies(08E)

*chairperson

Organized panel
Taniguchi, Shizuhiro

Ryukoku University, Japan

M.Heidegger's Thinking and the Question to Religion(08E)

Religion, connected with language deeply, comes into being and develops, and it is thus a linguistic phenomenon essentially. In general, religion begins with a call from "the dimension of transcendence" to human beings, and because this dimension exceeds a human being in every aspect, the call has the character of "secret". But when the call opens "religious dimension" in human beings, so can be thought, the call will be heard as "blessed words". I want to understand the religious language as a trial to get over human language, though it is still human language. By the way, a question to "God" melts into Heidegger's thinking deeply, and led by this question, Heidegger thought thoroughly the relation between the ultimate and language. In this paper I will try to clarify the problems involved in the relation between religion and language in the light of Heidegger's thinking.

Organized panel, Japanese
Tatsuguchi, Kyoko

Toho Gakuin, Japan

Methods of Making a Retreat (Sanro) in a Temple to Ask for a Revelation(13P)

The expression of 'sanro'( Literally confining oneself to pray the Bodhisattva, then means practicing in a temple ) are seen in the literatures, diaries and biographies of the middle age. But most of them are fragmentary and there are few studies on the 'sanro' itself. In the previous paper, I studied the structure of 'sanro', especially the expression of the set patterns according to time process and place. In this paper, I will study the mechanism of 'sanro'. I will point out that it is the religious act which measured problem solution in a 'holy place', at 'tubone' under the guidance of 'shinoso', aiming at harmony with soul and body. 'Miakashi' is read out, it sit up all night, and 'mukoku' is received before dawn. I will illustrate refering to many texts as possible and to go the modern meaning of 'sanro', and other countries' 'sanro'.

Organized panel, English
Tatsuguchi, Myosei

Ryukoku University, Japan

Buddhism and Practice(09G)

After Sakyamuni attained awakening he preached his first sermon and founded the Buddhist order of monks. After some time, precepts were established for the community of monks. Precepts are rules that each monk must obey and that constitute the code of the Buddhist order. Living a life according to the precepts is a precondition for entering meditation. At the same time precepts allow the monks to live in harmony with the surrounding society, including Buddhist lay believers as well as non-Buddhists. The precepts are classified into ten categories of intention. These include the goals of preserving harmony within the community of monks, deepening belief in Buddhist teachings and encouraging belief in non-Buddhist teachings, setting up favorable conditions for encouraging monks in their practice, and transmitting the Buddhist teachings to future generations. Through the precepts, the Buddhist teachings are realized in the specificity of everyday life, and demonstrate to society the truth of Buddhism.

Organized panel, Japanese
Tatta, Yukie

Harvard University, USA

Examining the Ideology of a Multi-religious Identity: Islam and Christianity in the Nationalisms of African Americans, Bosnians and Palestinians(05S)

This study explores how a religious nationalism accommodates or does not accommodate the existence of other religious groups in the nation. When we talk about religion and nationalism, we usually think about the cases where a nationalism is based on one religious tradition, often causing conflicts for another religious group inside or outside the nation. The objective here is to examine the theoretically possible ideology of a multi-religious nationalism, in which more than one religious tradition equally provides a combined basis for the national identity. I will show how an ideology of a multi-religious, specifically Muslim-Christian, identity has been taking place in nationalisms of African Americans, Palestinians and Bosnians from early twentieth century to this day, while at other points of history they have also gone in the opposite direction of an exclusive single-religious nationalism. I will analyze what conditions and circumstances have made them go into the direction of constructing a single- or multi-religious identity.

Organized panel, English
Tayob, Abdulkader

The Resurgence of Shari'ah in 21st Century Nigeria: Implications for Peace and Human Rights(11O)

*chairperson

Organized panel
Tazaki, Miyako

Tokyo University of Science, Japan

Expression of Spirituality among the Japanese Based on Qualitative and Quantitative Researches in Japan(16J)

Based on the results of the WHOQOL Spirituality, Religiousness and Personal Beliefs (SRPB) research project conducted in 2002 by Japanese scholars, the concept of "spirituality" expressed in Japanese society seems to be based on a "personal relationship with others," "inner strength," and "inner peace." The category "Faith in a specific religion" was shown as being least prevalent, which in the construct of spirituality proposed by the WHO, is one of the essential concepts among people with monotheistic religions. In addition, "kindness to others/selflessness," "acceptance of others," "faith," "inner strength," "inner peace/serenity, harmony," "death and dying," "meaning of life," "connectedness to a spiritual being or force," and "divine love" were valid sub-constructs of spirituality as understood in Japanese society. This shows some of the ethnographic and cultural characteristics of the spirituality of the Japanese people.

Organized panel, English