일본 근대의 불교가 이노우에 엔료의 기독교비판과 그 의의-『진리금침초편』을 중심으로-

Abstract

As the beginning of the Japanese modern era, the Meiji Restoration was the beginning of a dark period of Buddhist persecution on the Buddhist system. The power of this Buddhist persecution was weakened by around 1872(明治5) when the Ministry of Teaching(敎部省) was established. However, the Buddhist system was forced to suffer great difficulties until 1877(明治10) when the same Ministry was abolished. In overcoming these difficulties of the Buddhist system, I think that the important task of the Buddhist society was to give a firm recognition to the social role of Buddhism and the criticizing work to Christianity in Japanese society. Especially, the task of criticizing to Christianity would not have been easy in a situation where the Western empire with Christianity had to accept the relics. However, the Buddhist system was enduring enough to dispute with such difficult task to Christianity and published a number of Christian criticisms. Perhaps it was not unusual for a nation to publish many books of criticizing Christianity in the modern period. And while this Christian criticism was being worked, I think that Inoue Enryo(井上円了) was probably not the only critic of Christianity, but a representative who thoroughly raised the excellence of Buddhist doctrine. The elaborate and detailed discussion of the Buddhist doctrine that he showed in "The First Chapter of Sin-ri-kin-sin (眞理金針初編)" seemed to have played a major role in stimulating Buddhist people at that time and putting the Buddhist spirit into action. Based on the above discussion, we can summarize the reasons why Buddhists lead the critique of Christianity in the modern period and the social atmosphere where such criticism was possible. (1) The Buddhist system took the lead in criticizing Christianity as an attempt to clarify the Buddhist social role during the modern Buddhist persecution period. (2) The Buddhist criticism to Christianity became an opportunity to bring new vitality through the rediscovery of the Buddhist doctrine and the revival of the Buddhist system which was being oppressed. (3) Through Buddhist criticism and overcoming Buddhist persecution, the Buddhist culture became more rooted in traditional Buddhist tradition as a religious culture. (4) The Buddhist criticism to Christianism has meant to keep the position of the polytheistic Shinto from the monotheistic Christianity. This naturally advocated the policy of the Meiji government in adopting the policy of Shinto nationalism, and the Meiji government recognized such Buddhist criticism. (5) The fact that the doctrine of Buddhism was controversial on western religion due to criticism of Christianity led to the establishment of Buddhism as a social ideology in Japanese society.