1994 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Research on the conept of life in Japanese culture and its religious implications
| Project/Area Number |
04451007
|
|---|
| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (B)
|
| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
|---|
| Research Field |
Religious studies
|
|---|
| Research Institution | International Research Center for Japanese Studies |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
YAMAORI Tetsuo IRCJS,Research Dep. , Professor, 研究部, 教授 (40102686)
|
|---|
| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
MORIOKA Masahiro IRCJS,Research Dep. , Research Associate, 研究部, 助手 (00234245)
SUZUKI Sadami IRCJS,Research Dep. , Associate Professor, 研究部, 助教授 (60179207)
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
1992 – 1994
|
| Keywords | the concept of life / Japanese culture / Taisho life-ism / Japanese religions |
|---|
| Research Abstract |
A holistic research on the relationship between the concept of life and its religious implications in Japanese culture was made in fiscal years 1992-94. First we discovered our images of life and death were deeply influenced by the traditional Shinto concept of the next world, and by the Buddhist concept of, Jodo. 'We can trace these influences in the early Man'yoshu manuscripts, modern novels such as Shiga Naoya's "Anya Koro, " and even in the questionnare responses we conducted as part of this research. Second we analyzed contemoprary debates on brain-death and trasplantation, and discovered the traditional conept of life and the modern, scientific one at the same time in the materials. This signifies our contemparary images of life and death are torn up between the traditional conept and the scientific one. Third we succeeded in grasping a holisitc cultural movement "Taisho life-ism" in the early 19th century. The word "Taisho life-ism (Taisho Seimei Shugi) " was coined by Suzuki Sadami, one of this research investigators, and this word is now being accepted as a key conept when seeing the Taisho era's Japanese culture. We also discussed the continuity between Taisho life-ism and a life-ism movement in the 1980's. We published several books and a number of articles, where we gave detailed analyzes on these topics.
|
