Danka system
Encyclopedia
The , also known as is a system of voluntary and long-term affiliation between Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 temples and households in use in Japan since the Heian period
Heian period
The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. The period is named after the capital city of Heian-kyō, or modern Kyōto. It is the period in Japanese history when Buddhism, Taoism and other Chinese influences were at their height...

. In it, households (the danka) financially support a Buddhist temple which, in exchange, provides for their spiritual needs. Although its existence long predates the Edo period
Edo period
The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

 (1603 - 1868), the system is best known for its repressive use made at that time by the Tokugawa
Tokugawa shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...

, who made the affiliation with a Buddhist temple compulsory
Freedom of religion
Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any...

 to all citizens.

During the Tokugawa shogunate, the system was turned into a citizen registration network; supposedly intended to stop the diffusion of Christianity and help detect hidden Christians, it soon became a government-mandated and Buddhist temple-run system to monitor and control the population as a whole. For this reason, it survived intact long after Christianity in Japan had become a spent force. The system as it existed in Tokugawa times is sometimes called because of the certification (or terauke, because the tera, or temple would issue an uke, or certificate) issued by a Buddhist temple that a citizen was not a Christian.

The mandatory danka system was officially abolished after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, but continues nonetheless to exists as a voluntary association between the two sides, constitutes a major part of the income of most temples and defines as before the relationship between households and temples.

The terauke

The danka system changed drastically in 1638 when, in reaction to the Shimabara Rebellion
Shimabara Rebellion
The was an uprising largely involving Japanese peasants, most of them Catholic Christians, in 1637–1638 during the Edo period.It was one of only a handful of instances of serious unrest during the relatively peaceful period of the Tokugawa shogunate's rule...

 (1637-38), the bakufu decided to stamp out the Christian religion using it as a tool. The relationship between temple and danka, until then voluntary, was formalized and made compulsory: Buddhist temples were ordered to start writing terauke certificates for all their , while households on their part had the duty to become danka of the closest Buddhist temple, regardless of its sect (Nichiren, Jōdo, Rinzai, etc), and to obtain from it a terauke. Although never written into law, this use of the system nonetheless quickly became a universal and extremely important feature of Tokugawa Japan. Administratively speaking, all Japanese, Shinto priests included, became an integral part of the Buddhist bureaucratic organization, which in turn referred to the Tokugawa.

The system had three tiers, with at the lowest the temple which issued the terauke. Local government officials would then collect all terauke, bind them in ledgers called and submit them to higher authorities. The purpose was to force Christians to become affiliated to a Buddhist temple, while making the monitoring of suspected Christians easier.

The very first registries in existence are dated between 1638 and 1640 and, unsurprisingly, are found in areas where the Christian religion was strong, for example Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

, its province and Kyūshū
Kyushu
is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....

. Registries in other areas aren't found until the second half of the 17th century, but individual terauke, which clearly served the same purpose, are.

Because in 1664 the bakufu ordered to all daimyō
Daimyo
is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

s the establishment in their domain of an officer of religious investigation called or , from the following year registries of religious affiliation started being produced nationwide.

In 1671 the registry's format was standardized. The document had to record all peasant households, state the number of men and women of each town, plus the totals for all districts and the province. The intendant had to keep the registry and send a one-page summary to higher authorities. Further, all departures from the community due to marriage, work or death were to be recorded. This registry format was maintained unchanged until 1870, three years into the Meiji era. Since the order explicitly states that "Naturally, it is appropriate to investigate many things, and not only at the time of inquiry into religion", the system clearly had from the beginning purposes that went beyond religion. The result was an Edo
Edo
, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...

 equivalent of today's household registry, set apart only by the temple's obligation to specify a family temple and the citizens' to obtain a terauke. In some regions, the right to issue certificates was called ,a right which gradually became a source of great power for the temples. Not only was a certificate issued after payment of a fee, but it gave religious authorities the power of life and death over parishioners.

This document had to be obtained every year after an inspection at one's temple of affiliation. Those who for some reason couldn't obtain a temple certification were recorded as hinin (non-persons) and thereafter subject to discrimination, or simply executed as Christians. Not only peasants, but even samurai and Shintō priests could not live or function within society without a terauke, which had assumed a role similar to that of identity papers now. It was necessary to get married, to travel, to gain access to certain jobs. After 1729 the breaking of ties between a temple and a danka (or ) was formally outlawed, making the link between a danka and a temple impossible to break. This eliminated competition for parishioners between temples, giving a man and his family no possibility to change temple of affiliation. By the late 17th century the system had become an integral part of the Tokugawa state apparatus.

The appearance of the Gojōmoku

The life of the dankas were later made even more difficult by a document that greatly expanded a temple's powers over those affiliated to it. Purporting to be a bakufu law regulating in great detail the certification of religious affiliation process, it appeared around 1735 and had thereafter large circulation all over Japan. Dated 1613 and called "Individual Rules Concerning the Certification of Religious Affiliation for Danka"(Gojōmoku Shūmon Danna Ukeai No Okite (御条目宗門旦那請合之掟), usually abbreviated in just Gojōmoku), it is demonstrably a forgery
Forgery
Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...

, probably created by the temples themselves, whose interests it serves.

That the document is a fake is proven beyond doubt by the fact that it lists among the forbidden religions not only Christianity, but also the and subschools of the Nichiren
Nichiren
Nichiren was a Buddhist monk who lived during the Kamakura period in Japan. Nichiren taught devotion to the Lotus Sutra, entitled Myōhō-Renge-Kyō in Japanese, as the exclusive means to attain enlightenment and the chanting of Nam-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō as the essential practice of the teaching...

 sect
Sect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...

. Since the two schools were outlawed respectively in 1669 and 1691, the date of issue must have been deliberately misstated. The likely reason this particular date was chosen is that it is the year in which Tokugawa Ieyasu's was issued, and because the following year temples were ordered to start issuing terauke.

The document is often found in temples and collections all over the country and it appears to have been believed genuine even by most Meiji period
Meiji period
The , also known as the Meiji era, is a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912. This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan.- Meiji Restoration and the emperor :...

 historians. The Gojōmoku, which gives temples additional power over parishioners, is mentioned occasionally by temple registries and, when a danka did not meet its conditions, the temple certification wasn't issued. Its provisions caused considerable problems between danka and temples.

The document first defined four duties of the danka.
  • Duty to visit the temple on several yearly occasion. Failure to make the visits could cause the removal of the dankas name from the registry..
  • Duty to perform two services on the day of the ancestor memorial service. Failure to provide adequate entertainment for the priest meant being branded as a Christian.
  • Duty to make the family temple perform all memorial and funerary services.
  • Duty of anyone capable of walking to be present at memorial services for ancestors.

It then gave five rights to its temple.
  • A danka had to perform certain acts in favor of the temple, including making offerings and providing free labor. Failure to do so meant being branded as a Fuju-fuse sect member.
  • A danka had to obey its temple and give money to its priests.
  • Regardless of how long a danka group had been faithful, it was always to be subject to religious investigation to determine the possible emergence of heresy..
  • After someone's death, just looking at the corpse the priest could determine what the defunct's true religion had been.
  • The danka was always to follow his temple's orders.

Consequences of the danka system

The consequences of two centuries and a half of terauke use and of the bureaucratization of Buddhism were numerous and profound, first of all for Buddhism itself.

Structural distortions

The chasm between allowed and forbidden sects became much deeper than it had been. If on the one hand Buddhism allowed a diversification of its authorized sects, on the other it punished tendencies that put into question the political status quo. A danka was registered at the closest temple regardless of its religious affiliations, so these became gradually less important. As a consequence of all these factors, differences among sects allowed by the government got watered down and Buddhism became more uniform, not least because the Shogunate had a say in matters of religious orthodoxy.

During the Edo period, Buddhism therefore offered few new ideas (with the possible exception of the reform of Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...

 sects). On the contrary, the development during the same period of Japanese Confucianism and Shinto, and the birth of the so-called "New Religions" produced interesting ideas.

The advent of "funerary Buddhism"

Even though the original intent of Buddhism was the spreading of the teachings of Buddha, Buddhist temples in Japan today are primarily cemeteries. The so-called or Funerary Buddhism of today, lampooned for example in Itami Juzo's film The Funeral, where Japanese Buddhism's essential function has become confined to the performance of funerals and memorial services, is a direct consequence of the danka system, as is the sale of posthumous names (or ) . As far as Buddhism was concerned, the defining feature of the danka system during the Edo period was the fact that it guaranteed a steady stream of profits
Profit (economics)
In economics, the term profit has two related but distinct meanings. Normal profit represents the total opportunity costs of a venture to an entrepreneur or investor, whilst economic profit In economics, the term profit has two related but distinct meanings. Normal profit represents the total...

 thanks to the mandatory funerary rites. This cash flow is what paid for the majority of the temples in Japan and guaranteed their proliferation, and is inseparable from the danka system. Hence the tight association between Buddhism and death that continues to this day. When the formal dissolution of the whole danka system arrived after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, it meant for Buddhism a great loss of income, and therefore financial insecurity.

The Haibutsu kishaku movement

The use of terauke and the widespread resentment it created are considered to be one of the primary causes of the haibutsu kishaku
Haibutsu kishaku
is a term that indicates a current of thought continuous in Japan's history which advocates the expulsion of Buddhism from Japan...

, a violent and spontaneous movement that at the beginning of the Meiji era caused the destruction of a high number of temples all over Japan. The government's official policy of separation of Shinto and Buddhism (Shinbutsu bunri
Shinbutsu Bunri
The term in Japanese indicates the forbidding by law of the amalgamation of kami and buddhas made during the Meiji Restoration. It also indicates the effort made by the Japanese government to create a clear division between native kami beliefs and Buddhism on one side, and Buddhist temples and...

) of the time, while not directly responsible for this destruction, provided the trigger that released pent-up energy. Considering Buddhism's close association with the Tokugawa, it can't be a surprise that Buddhist monks were regarded as state agents and that several sectors of the Edo society began trying to find alternate ways to satisfy their spiritual needs.

In spite of its history, Buddhism had however decisive advantages over both Shinto
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...

 and Confucianism
Confucianism
Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...

that during the Meiji era made it impossible to replace it with either. With its many rituals (the jūsan butsuji, or thirteen Buddhist rituals), Buddhism could better help people cope with death. Moreover, Shinto associates death and pollution, so it is intrinsically less suitable to funerary ceremonies, while Confucianism in Japan did not concern itself much with funerals. Lastly, Buddhism had a country-wide infrastructure that neither Shinto nor Confucianism could match.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK