The first Japanese Buddhist nuns weren’t welcome in Japan. It’s recorded that three Japanese ladies had been the primary folks of Japan to obtain any form of Buddhist ordinations, as novice nuns, within the yr 584. But Buddhism was a brand new and controversial faith in Japan. At least one highly effective clan, the Mononobe, was towards it. In 587, the Mononobe incited a mob to riot and destroy the nuns’ temple. The nuns had been publicly defrocked and crushed. Somehow the three nuns had been rescued after which shipped out of Japan for their very own security.
Buddhism had not too long ago been launched to Japan as a result of a king of Korea wanted army reinforcements. King Seong (r. 523–554) was a ruler of Baekje, a kingdom situated on the southwest portion of the Korean Peninsula. In the mid-Sixth century Baekje was at warfare with two different Korean Peninsula kingdoms over disputed territory. In a transfer that smacks a little bit of desperation, Seong reached out to the monarch of the land of Wa, throughout the japanese sea. This was Kinmei, recorded in historical past because the twenty ninth emperor of Japan.
In about 552 an emissary from Seong arrived at Kinmei’s courtroom. Among the items offered to Kinmei was a copper and gold statue of the Buddha and a few Buddhist scriptures. And there was a letter from Seong to Kinmei recommending Buddhism. “This doctrine is among all doctrines the most excellent,” Seong stated, “But it is hard to explain and hard to comprehend.” And then Seong requested for reinforcements.
This occasion is taken into account the formal introduction of Buddhism to Japan, though it’s recognized that some Japanese had heard of Buddhism earlier than this. By all accounts Kinmei was enchanted with the items and acquired them with nice solemnity. But he didn’t reply to Seong’s request for assist. Seong was killed in battle in 554.
The First Japanese Buddhist Nuns
At the time, the land of Wa was being pulled in lots of instructions by its highly effective clans. One of those was the Soga clan. The Soga had contacts in Korea and China, and so they had been ready to just accept Buddhism. Another was the Mononobe clan, who feared their indigenous gods can be angered by veneration of a overseas picture. Unsure of what to do, Kinmei gave the Buddha statue to the Soga. The Soga might worship it, after which all would see how the indigenous gods would react. Unfortunately, a plague broke out. Kinmei had the statue tossed right into a canal. Buddhism was formally banned.
The Soga clan weren’t prepared to surrender. They continued to advertise Buddhism. And this takes us to the novice ordination of the three nuns. In 584 Soga aristocrats sponsored this ordination of three very younger ladies — one could have been solely eleven years outdated — who got the ordination names Zenshin, Zenzo, and Kenzen. The ordination was performed by an imported Korean monk. The three novice nuns had been put in in a temple constructed by the Soga. And then, in 587, the Mononobe attacked and destroyed the temple and publicly defrocked the younger nuns.
The nuns had been shipped to Baekje, the place they had been capable of practice and examine underneath totally ordained nuns. While they had been away the Soga attacked and crushed the Mononobe in battle. And then the three Japanese nuns returned to Japan in 590 to show and ordain extra nuns. I’ve seen some quibbling that in such a short while the three couldn’t probably have acquired full ordination. But within the a long time that adopted extra Japanese ladies had been capable of obtain full nuns’ ordinations, often with the assistance of Korean and typically Chinese nuns.
The Empress Suiko
The clan rivalry over Buddhism was resolved in 592. That yr a granddaughter of Soga no Iname, the top of the Soga clan, was enthroned because the Empress Suiko (r. 592–628). the thirty third monarch of Japan. Her nephew, Prince Shotoku, served as her regent. Both Suiko and Shotoku are remembered as religious Buddhists who inspired the unfold of Buddhism in Japan.
The rivalry between Buddhism and indigenous beliefs —loosely, what immediately is named Shinto—can be resolved in what a lot later got here to be known as the shinbutsu shugo, or “unity of spirits and buddhas.” Buddhism was tailored into indigenous beliefs, and indigenous beliefs—corresponding to perception in spirits known as kami—got here to be accommodated by Japanese Buddhism. It was fairly regular for Shinto and Buddhism to share temples and shrines. However, in 1868 the federal government of Japan adopted a coverage known as shinbutsu bunri, which separated Buddhism and Shinto. That’s a subject for one more put up.
As for the discarded gold and bronze statue of the Buddha, it’s stated somebody scooped it out of the canal. It is now housed at Zenko-ji, a temple in Nagano, though nobody is allowed to see it. Read extra in regards to the story of Buddhism in Japan in my e book, The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World, printed by Shambhala.