By: AJ Witte
How does a religion take over a country? A rather odd question, but one that must be asked time and time again as throughout history we see religions of all forms wash over the lands. For the sake of this article we ask how did Buddhism wash over and create an effective death grip over Japan. I think that at first glance there is a rather simple cut and dry answer: it simply happens. Over time public opinion of said religion grows and grows until eventually it becomes the dominant, seeping its way into all aspects of the country. However, I think that through our reading, specifically our reading regarding the traveling priest Keikai and his Record of Miraculous Events we see an important factor that I feel is paramount to the success of any religion taking hold in a country. That being the need to amaze its followers. While a silly statement on its face, I think that a specific phrase from the reading gives us everything we need in order to believe such a thing: “In the process, local folk stories and anecdotes became Buddhist parables. Whereas the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki combined many of the local and provincial myths and legends into a larger state mythology, Buddhism similarly began to absorb local folk stories, converting them to its own use and producing the kinds of Buddhist anecdotes found in the Nihon ryoiki. As a consequence, the interest of a number of the stories in the Nihon ryoiki is not in the Buddhistic message, which is usually found at the end, but in the story itself, which was erotic or violent,” (William Th. De Bary 118). These stories did as much to dazzle its audience as much as to bash you over the head with its message. Many of these stories are quite amazing, speaking of a young woman being saved from a marriage with a snake by giant crabs to ne’er-do-wells being turned into ox people in the night. I feel that even if as stated by the author that many were far more interested in stories themselves rather than the messaging, that is still an audience willing to listen to you weave your tales. People who may then share those stories with their neighbors and their neighbors to theirs until you have unknowingly spread Buddhist parables with the entirety of the known country. A religion without story or interest is simply another dry self-help book rotting on the shelf. You must rope your flock in and give them a reason to want to join your cause.
Sources:
Keikai, Record of Miraculous Events in Japan. In Sources of Japanese Tradition, Volume One: From Earliest Times to 1600. 2nd edition, edited by William Th. de Bary. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
