Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality
Buddhism, Unitarianism, and the Meiji Competition for Universality
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佛教、一神论与明治普遍性竞争
DOI：
10.2307/j.ctt1x07x8t
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发表时间：
2014
影响因子：
2.4
通讯作者：
Michel Mohr
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Michel Mohr
日本明治时期佛教与基督教的关系史（1868−1912）曾被描述为一条“从冲突到对话”的轨迹（Thelle 1987）。从那时起，许多著作的出版使这一叙述进一步复杂化，其中包括几项从不同角度旨在历史化“宗教”本身的现代观念的研究。正如之前的大部分著作所揭示的那样，正是通过佛教和基督教这两种信仰体系之间的主要冲突互动，“shūkyō”一词得以建立，这是明治新词，专门用于翻译西欧语言中的“宗教”一词。在本书中，米歇尔·莫尔从不同的角度对上述争论做出了贡献：他关注的是现代日本对“普世主义”话语的接受和挪用方面。更具体地说，莫尔不仅介绍了明治和大正时期的一神论运动的详细历史，而且还介绍了围绕它发展起来的动态网络（包括宗教和学术）。一神论是一个非常异质的基督教运动，其现代表现形式强调“真理在所有宗教传统中的内在性”（第xi页），从莫尔的著作中也可以清楚地看出，它在明治日本的知识背景中发挥了不可否认的重要作用。尽管它很重要，但它仍然只是少数研究的主题，其中最值得注意的也许是铃木德久（Suzuki Norihisa，1979）的研究。然而，莫尔以这些研究为基础，并根据日本和美国档案馆研究的原始手稿来源提出了新的叙述。专着分为三部分，每部分又分为三章。第一部分题为“种子与移植”，首先对西方的“普遍真理”概念进行一般性讨论，以及它在维新后日本背景下的接受和早期挪用，主要是通过一神论使命及其网络。莫尔接着描述了在日本传教的初期阶段，首先关注阿瑟·梅·纳普（Arthur May Knapp，1841-1921 年）的活动，然后关注他的继任者克莱·麦考利（Clay MacCauley，1843-1925 年）的活动。麦考利也许是本书的中心人物（本书封面上是他的照片），他在 1890 年代初接替了纳普，并负责于 1894 年建立了东京一神论大厅，该大厅后来发展成为一个针对宗教问题进行讲座和讨论的场所。
The history of the relationship between Buddhism and Christianity in Meiji Japan (1868−1912) was once presented as a trajectory “from conflict to dialogue” (Thelle 1987). Since then, many works have been published that further complicate this narrative, including several studies which from different perspectives aim at historicizing the modern idea of “religion” itself. As much of this previous work reveals, it was through the mostly conflictual interaction between these two belief systems of Buddhism and Christianity that the term shūkyō—a Meiji neologism developed especially to translate the word “religion” as found in Western European languages—was established. In this book, Michel Mohr offers a contribution to the above debates from a different standpoint: he focuses on the aspect of the reception and appropriation of the discourse on “universalism” in modern Japan. In more concrete terms, Mohr presents an impressively detailed history not only of the Unitarian movement during the Meiji and Taishō periods, but also of the dynamic networks—both religious and academic—that developed around it. Unitarianism, a very heterogeneous Christian movement which in its modern manifestation emphasizes, at its core, the “immanence of truth within all religious traditions” (p. xi) played, as is also clear from Mohr’s work, an undeniably important role in the intellectual context of Meiji Japan. Despite its significance, it has nevertheless been the topic of no more than a handful of studies, perhaps the most noteworthy of these being that by Suzuki Norihisa (1979). Mohr, however, builds upon these studies, and presents a new narrative based on original manuscript sources researched in archives in both Japan and the United States. The monograph is divided into three parts, each of them subdivided into three chapters. The first of these parts, titled “Seeds and Transplant,” begins with a general discussion of the Western concept of “universal truth,” as well as of its reception and early appropriation in the context of post-Restoration Japan, mainly through the enterprise of the Unitarian mission and its networks. Mohr then moves on to describe the incipient stage of the mission in Japan, by focusing first on the activities of Arthur May Knapp (1841–1921), and then on those of his successor, Clay MacCauley (1843–1925). Perhaps the central character of this book (it is his picture on the cover of the volume), MacCauley took over from Knapp in the early 1890s, and was responsible for the establishment in 1894 of the Tokyo Unitarian Hall, which developed into a place for lectures and discussion on