Shinran Discourse and Marxism in Modern Japan

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K21506
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Japanese history; History of thought
• Research Institution: Ryukoku University
• Principal Investigator: Kondo Shuntaro 龍谷大学, 公私立大学の部局等, 研究員 (00649030)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 親鸞論 / 親鸞像 / マルクス主義 / 宗教批判 / 反宗教 / 近代仏教 / 戦時教学 / 転向

Outline of Final Research Achievements

I have been carrying out research on the transformation of discourses surrounding Shinran in modern Japan, particularly their relationship to Marxism, and found the following.
In the early suihei (“leveling”) movement, an image of Shinran was formed in the context of its intellectual affinity for Marxism. This provided spiritual mobility for the liberation movement. With the advent of the anti-religion movement, Shinran thought was then dissolved by the “religion as opiate” view and understood as an ideology that serves the ruling class. In the context of religiously colored tenko; (political conversion), Shinran was seen as a basis for drawing out subservience to the emperor system state. After World War II, this understanding was reversed, and people constructed via Shinran positions critical of the pre-war emperor system state.

Free Research Field

思想史