The layman and the monk: the relocation of Japanese Buddhism and resignifying the buddhist lay community in the work of Ōuchi Seiran

Abstract

This essay explores how the Buddhist layman Ōuchi Seiran (1845- 1918) developed his discourse regarding lay Buddhism as being an essencially Japanese characteristic and a necessary alternative to the clerical Buddhism practiced hitherto. In 1899, in the context of the revision of the Unequal Treaties signed by Japan and foreigner powers, Seiran elaborates the idea that the Dharma carries out a social role originally transmitted and executed by the legendary Shōtoku Taishi, a layman himself. This shows that the laity (zaike) must be responsible for the protection of the Dharma under the imperial system. By interpretating the Japanese form of Mahāyāna Buddhism as an evolved development of the Buddha’s teaching and by locating the laity as legitimate practitioners over priests, Seiran makes his own “evolutionary theory” of a lay, imperialist and superior Japanese Buddhism. These arguments locate Seiran as one of the voices that were aiming to modernize Buddhism, and at the same time, validating the capacity of Buddhism to support the imperial government while being a moral guide for its time.