Buddhists in Action: Seno Giro and the Millenarian Movement in Prewar Japan.

Abstract

This thesis seeks to explain the intellectual and religious worlds of 1920-1930s Japan as having been conditioned by a dynamic current of millenarianism fueled by convergent natural, political, economic, and social crises. This is discussed by studying the political activities and religious transformations of the Buddhist-Marxist monk, Seno Giro (1889-1961) and his relationship with other Marxists, important Nichirenists such as Kita Ikki and Ishiwara Kanji, the leaders of Omotokyo, and state officials. The analysis on the millenarian aspects of Marxism, Nichirenism, yonaoshi, and state ideology as espoused by these thinkers forms the central strand of this thesis, but the linkages between religion and politics are also explored through a comparative study of their behavior. Some of them include: their idea of renovation, the notion of self and its relation to the proposed utopia, the tactics of inclusion and exclusion, and the strategic use of fear and anxiety using the idea of hijoji (emergency) and the Buddhist apocalypse (mappo).