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The Making of Modern Japan

larger Buddhist patrimonies had been. There were now promises of state support for major Shinto, which were named National or Imperial, shrines. The role of registration, previously performed by Buddhist temples, was now transferred to Shinto. Japanese were to be organized as parishioners (ujiko) of shrines, and to be registered by them. Parishioners were to receive a talisman at birth which would be returned to the shrine at death. In this manner the deities of the Ise shrine were to be installed in every household; with each house a branch shrine of Ise, all Japanese would be related to the cult center.29 Thus ambitious plans proposed to use Shinto to unify the population in a single cult, headed by the emperor as head priest; his ancestral (Ise) shrines and a new shrine that was established (the future Yasukuni Jinja in Tokyo) for those killed in the Restoration War, now declared national deities, would be the center of this national religion. Although its main contours were never renounced, the extremity of this potentially totalitarian structure was soon moderated. One factor was clear evidence of popular distress over the attacks on familiar centers of Buddhism. A second was the impracticality of the Shinto and kokugaku enthusiasts, who proved xenophobic and badly out of touch with the realities of the political situation; they irritated and then alienated their erstwhile supporters among the Restoration leaders. Perhaps most important was the long arm and clear disapproval of the Western powers, who advocated rights for Christianity in Japan and whose approval was requisite to the success of efforts to amend the treaties. The nal stage of the Restoration cultural revolution thus took a milder ) campaign, which was inaugurated stance. The Great Promulgation (Daikyo in 1870 and sputtered to a close fourteen years later, enlisted Buddhist as well and Konko kyo ) preachers as Proseas Shinto and new religion (Kurozumikyo lytizers or Missionaries for a synthetic Great Teaching to produce patriotic and ideologically malleable subjects. Ostensibly nonsectarian and national, the Great Teaching was more Shinto-centered than not. It focused attention on three rather bland instructions to (1) revere the gods (kami) and love the country, (2) clarify heavenly reason and the Way of humanity, and (3) revere the emperor and respect the court. A Great Teaching Institute served as seminary for the training of the evangelists who were to expound these platitudes. Preaching guides focused on paying taxes, complying with rescripts, educahei, or tion, the (new after 1873) solar calendar, military buildup ( fukoku-kyo rich country, strong army), and the importation of Western learning and modern civilization. This could be seen as a modern version of the Sacred Maxims that Ming and Ching dynasty emperors had directed village leaders to read to their communities, and also a forerunner of the 1890 Imperial Re-