Nineteenth-Century Japanese New Religions

From the mid-nineteenth century until the end of the Second World War many of the Japanese new religions derived much of their mythology and many of their deities and rituals from Shinto sources while at the same time drawing heavily on other local religious traditions.

Three new religions which emerged during the period of religious revival in the mid-nineteenth century deserve particular attention. These are Tenrikyo, Heavenly Wisdom (the suffix kyo means religion or teaching), Konkokyo, Golden Light, and Omotokyo, the Great Origin. The first of these three, Tenrikyo, was founded by Miki Nakayama (1798-1887), the daughter of a farmer who received her first revelation in 1837. She taught that the Heavenly Kingdom was drawing near bringing a world of sickness and poverty to an end, and appealed in the main to farming communities who had lost their property and status during the Meiji land reforms. Tenrikyo has an estimated 153,000 teachers and 2,500,000 members for whom the object of worship is God the Parent, the creator and sustainer of all life, who is assisted by a number of lesser gods. Miki Nakayama, it is believed, is both the shrine of God the Parent and the mediatrix between this god and humanity. The movement also has a holy shrine or centre at Jiba in Tenri City.

Despite the fact that the Tenrikyo creation account placed Japan at the centre of the universe and presented the Japanese as the original and supreme race, ideas compatible with those held by the new centralising administration, the movement was, none the less, persecuted by Meiji officials.

Konkokyo was founded in 1859 by Bunjiro Kawate (1814—83) whose father was also a farmer and who likewise was the recipient of numerous revelations. It was in one of these many revelations that he was told that the prosperity of mankind was the ultimate purpose of the ‘Parent­God of the Universe’ and that without the realisation of that purpose God himself would be morally imperfect. While this movement retains many Shinto rituals and services it is, nevertheless, ‘new’ in that it has discarded other Shinto beliefs and practices such as exorcism and divination. But what distinguishes it most clearly from Shintoism, and the same can be said of Tenrikyo, is its belief in a mediator between God and man. This movement’s ‘holy centre’ is at Asaguchi City and the principal object of its worship is the Parent God of the Universe who is believed to be the Spirit of the Founder. It has an estimated membership of just under half a million.

Omotokyo was founded in 1899 by Nao Deguchi (1836-1918), at one time a member of Konkokyo. Not surprisingly, there­fore, she preached a message of world reformation which was similar in many respects to that preached by Miki Nakayama. Deguchi proclaimed that ‘The Greater World shall be changed into the Kingdom of Heaven where peace will reign through all ages to come.’ However, it was her adopted son Onisaburo Deguchi (1871-1948) who was largely responsible for the development and spread of Omotokyo. Onisaburo also propounded the ‘Three Great Rules of Learning’ which provided many Omoto offshoots with much of their doctrinal content.

The first of the three rules lays down the principle that the body of God is Nature, the second that the energy of God is the source of the Universe’s movement and the third that every living creature possesses the soul of the true God. Therefore, everything is divine. Onisa- buro also preached the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God and became seriously involved in political issues criticising among other things Japan’s annexation of Korea, Manchuria and Taiwan.

The government responded in 1921 by arresting and imprisoning Onisaburo and by destroying the movement’s temples. After his release Onisaburo became a firm supporter of the Emperor and member­ship of the movement grew rapidly, reaching a total of almost three million by the mid-1930s. But once again in 1935 Onisaburo was arrested and charged with lese-majesty and the movement was dissolved and its temples and other property destroyed. Omotokyo began to experience something of a revival after Onisaburo Deguchi’s release in 1942, but it soon began to stagnate with the latter’s death in 1948. Today Omotokyo has an estimated 7,000 teachers, some 150,000 members and two sacred temples or centres, Kameoka and Ayabe, in Kyoto Prefecture. It has also developed strong links with other religious traditions, including Christianity, both in Japan and in Western Europe and the United States. Moreover, although numerically quite small when compared with a number of the other Japanese new move­ments, Omotokyo continues to exercise a considerable influence on Japanese society. One of its main concerns has been world peace. It maintains that religion is the basis of society and that the pursuit of peace should begin with religion. Omotokyo also emphasises the close link between religion and art. According to Onisaburo, ‘Art is the mother of religion’, and the movement has organised a number of art exhibitions in the West for the purpose of demonstrating this relationship and for the promotion of world peace. These and other ideas, many of which are contained in the eighty-one-volume encyclopedia produced by Onisaburo Deguchi, have served as a source of inspiration for other Japanese new religions, among them Sekaikyuseikyo, Church of World Messianity, Seicho no le, House of Growth, and Perfect Liberty Kyodan. Indeed it makes sense to speak of these three movements as Omoto-derived new religions.