Practically Religious: Worldly Benefits and the Common Religion of JapanPraying for practical benefits (genze riyaku) is a common religious activity in Japan. Despite its widespread nature and the vast numbers of people who pray and purchase amulets and talismans for everything from traffic safety and education success to business prosperity and protection from disease, the practice has been virtually ignored in academic studies or relegated to the margins as a uh_product of superstition or an aberration from the true dynamics of religion. Basing their work on a fusion of textual, ethnographic, historical, and contemporary studies, the authors of this volume demonstrate the fallacy of such views, showing that, far from being marginal, the concepts and practices surrounding genze riyaku lie at the very heart of the Japanese religious world. They thrive not only as popular religious expression but are supported by the doctrinal structures of most Buddhist sects, are ordained in religious scriptures, and are promoted by monastic training centers, shrines, and temples. |
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... popular folk religion assumed by Buddhism through its desire to bring all beings closer to the truth . Japanese Buddhist priests who perform memorial services for ancestors or sell amulets for good for- tune and personal benefit at ...
... popular guidebook to shrines and temples in the Kansai region of Japan famed for their provision of worldly benefits , the priest Imai Shōmyō has written that in visiting such places and having one's wishes realized , " the mind of the ...
... popular ” religion , which have been as- sumed by scholars in discussing medieval religion , did not exist in re- ality . Not only scholars focusing on “ elite ” religion have made this assumption : those studying the " popular ...
... popular ” reli- gious forms , is critical of the term " popular religion " because , as he notes , it is a “ term laden with questionable assumptions about the na- ture of non - popular religion and the gap between the two . " 64 We con ...
... popular religion , " Duffy has suggested a replacement : “ traditional religion , ” a term that " does more justice to the shared and inherited character of the reli- gious beliefs and practices of the people ” than the term “ popular ...
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Practically Religious: Worldly Benefits and the Common Religion of Japan Ian Reader,George J. Tanabe No preview available - 1998 |