The philosophies and religions of Japan from an esoteric perspective did not escape the attention of early Theosophists. Olcott made a very interesting trip to Japan: Meiji Buddhists invited Olcott to Japan, and Dharmapala followed after.
The Japanese wanted Olcott to show them ways to resist Christian
missionizing, and he insisted that the first step was bringing Buddhist
sects in Japan into institutional unity. He arrived in Kobe on February 9, 1889 together with Zenshiro Nogouchi and Anagarika Dharmapala.
From the first day until his departure in May, Olcott visited 33 towns
and delivered 76 addresses with a total audience of at least 87, 500
people, and possibly as many as 200,000. With financial help from the
Buddhist sects, and with support from Hansei-kai, Oriental Hall and
other Buddhist societies, his tour became a great success. Olcott was
welcomed by people everywhere, and he talked with local leaders and
governors, as well as with the prime minister. Olcott’s tour was the
peak of Japanese Buddhist revival in a visible form. (Yoshinaga Shin’ichi, Theosophy and Buddhist Reformers in the Middle of the Meiji Period (Japanese Religions Vol. 34, No. 2, July 2009), 125.)
Blavatsky, citing the work of Charles Pfoundes (Omoie Tetsunosuke 重井哲之助) integrated Japan cosmological notions into the Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 214: The same hierarchy, with the same numbers, is found in the
Japanese system, in the “Beginnings” as taught by both the Shinto and
the Buddhist sects. In this system, Anthropogenesis precedes
Cosmogenesis, as the Divine merges into the human, and creates — midway in its descent into matter — the visible Universe. The
legendary personages — remarks reverentially Omoie — “having to be
understood as the stereotyped embodiment of the higher (secret)
doctrine, and its sublime truths.” To state it at full length, however,
would occupy too much of our space, but a few words on this old system
cannot be out of place. The following is a short synopsis of this
Anthropo-Cosmogenesis, and it shows how closely the most separated
notions echoed one and the same Archaic teaching.
When all was as yet Chaos (Kon-ton) three spiritual Beings appeared on the stage of future creation: (1) Ame no ani naka nushi no Kami, “Divine Monarch of the Central Heaven”; (2) Taka mi onosubi no Kami, “Exalted, imperial Divine offspring of Heaven and the Earth”; and (3) Kamu mi musubi no Kami, “Offspring of the Gods,” simply.
The Shade of Sattay
Shawn F. Higgins 2023
Judge
received a letter from the Japanese Buddhist scholar, Matsuyama
Matsutaro, dated March 27, 1887. It read: Through Judge, Matsuyama
received
letters from other Theosophists, and from the Ceylonese Buddhist
activist, Anagarika Dharmapala.
At this time Matsuyama announced the creation of the Yamato Theosophical
Society in Kyoto, Japan. In response, Judge sent a letter of support,
which was published in Matsuyama’s journal, The Bijou of Asia:
“The [American] people need the religion of Buddha because their own has
not succeeded in making them honest or kind to each other […] they are
not very happy because illusions of life make them slaves of senses.”
Tracing Karma in Meiji Japan The Global Entanglement of Religion, Morality and Science
Antiracism & Spiritual Universalism. Japan, India, &
the Development of Internationalism
Akio Tanabe Apr 5, 2021
Kinza Hirai Kakuzō
Okakura, HS Olcott Anagarika Dharmapala Vivekananda Nikola Tesla World’s
Parliament of Religions, 1893 to UNESCO, 1946
Buddhism and Modernity in Japan An Introduction
Orion Klautau and Hans Martin Krämer, 2021
A Brief History of the Theosophical Society in Japan in the Interwar Period
Helena Čapková The Journal of CESNUR, Volume 4, Issue 5, September—October 2020, pages 3—26.
ABSTRACT:
The article presents for the first time a brief, yet still quite
detailed, history of the Theosophical Society (TS) in Japan based on
research of primary sources, mainly in the headquarters of the Society
in Adyar, a suburb of Chennai, India. Three decades after the first
contacts made during the visits by the TS President, Colonel H.S. Olcott
(1832–1907), in 1889 and 1891, the first TS lodge in Japan,
the Tokyo International Lodge, was established by James Henry Cousins
(1873–1956) in 1920. Cousins’ initiative stimulated interest in the TS,
and other lodges were established, although the duration of their
activities was sometimes quite short: Orpheus and Mahayana launched in
1924, while Miroku (Maitreya) Lodge did the same in 1928.
good study on Theosophy & Buddhism in Japan, London & US 1880s
After Olcott Left Theosophy and "New Buddhists" at the Turn of the Century. by Orion Klautau （オリオン・クラウタウ)
Shin'ichi Yoshinaga. 2012, The Eastern Buddhist NEW SERIES, Vol. 43, No. 1/2 
"After
Colonel Olcott's visits to Japan in the late nineteenth century, no further work
by the Adyar Theosophical Society occurred until Dr. James H. Cousins spent a
year in Japan in 1919-1920 as a professor of modern English poetry at Keio
University in Tokyo (Cousins and Cousins, 348-69). At this time, he helped form
the Tokyo International Lodge. In a letter dated February 15, 1920, Cousins
wrote to the international headquarters at Adyar about the lodge's beginnings
with eleven members: five Japanese and six international members from America,
Korea, Greece, and India.
Soyen Shaku, Toki Horyu, and others formed a delegation of Zen Buddhists from Japan. Soyen Shaku met Dr. Paul Carus at the Parliament, and that directly led to the long association of the Open Court Publishing Company editor with D. T. Suzuki.[12]
The Japanese delegation returned home through Europe. While in London,
they visited the headquarters of the Theosophical Society in England,
and signed the guest book on October 19th.[13][14] Soyen Shaku described the Parliament as "the forerunner of the future universal religion of science."[15]
No comments:
Post a Comment