JJRS > Volume 25 Issue 3-4 Buddha no fukuin: The deployment of Paul Carus's Gospel of Buddha in Meiji Japan.

Snodgrass, Judith

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Why did the Rinzai Zen abbot Shaku Sōen publish a Japanese translation of the life of the Buddha that had been written by an American philosopher to promote Christian monism? In seeking to answer this question, this paper examines first Paul Carus’s mission to overcome the perceived conflict between Christianity and science in the late nineteenth century. It then considers how his introduction to Mahāyāna Buddhism through the delegation of Japanese priests to the World's Parliament of Religions, Chicago 1893, resulted in a book that aimed to popularize his vision. Finally, it positions the translation of this book (Budda no fukuin) in the discursive contexts of Meiji Japan for the ideological future of the modern nation to show how it served the aims of the Meiji Buddhist revival.