Links for Japanese Religions

General:

• Society for the Study of Japanese Religions
  • SSJR Links to Japanese Religions (extensive list)
• Religion in Japan (Duke University)
• Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
• Contemporary Papers on Japanese Religion (Kokugakuin University)
• Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies: articles on religious studies
• Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture
• Japanese Religion bibliography (Columbia Univ.)
• Philosophy & Religion links (University of Redlands)
• Japanese Mythology (brief text entries on nearly 300 terms, from The Encyclopedia Mythica)
• Henry Smith's homepage (Columbia University -- some useful links)
• Bibliography of Asian Studies: very complete, but broad
  
  
• Satellite view of Japan (Google Maps)
• "Live" satellite view
• Map and basic facts
• Sacred Places in Japan
• Converting dates: Meiji-Taisho-Showa-Heisei
  

• Japanese E-text collection
• The Ainu Museum (Hokkaido)
• Visualizing Japan (MIT)
• Samurai Archives
• Introductory article on samurai by Morgan Pitelka (Occidental College)
• Shrines, Temples, and Buddhist Sculpture (photos with short descriptions)
• Pictures of religion in Japan (Wikimedia Commons)
  
  
• Jewish Japan (some good stuff, some dead links, and some flaky theories)
• Jewish community of Japan

Shinto:

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• Association of Shinto Shrines (Jinja Honcho)
  
• Shinto Online Network Association
• Japanese Historical Text Initiative (University of California Berkeley): essays, resources, tools, links
• Encyclopedia of Shinto (Kokugakuin University)
• Shinto Sacred Texts (Kojiki, Nihongi, and Engishiki)
• Essay on Kojiki, by Delmer Brown
• Shinto: A to Z Photo Dictionary
• "The Way of the Kami: Shinto Then and Now" by Robert Ellwood (chapter 3 of his book, Japanese Religion)

• "Hawaii’s Domestication of Shinto" by James Whitehurst (1984)

  
  
  
• Festivals throughout Japan (Japan Atlas)
• Sacred Spaces in Shinto
• "Shinto Purification Rituals: An Aesthetic Interpretation" by James W. Boyd and Ron G. Williams
• Ise Shrine (from a travel guide)
• Meiji Shrine
• Yasukuni Shrine
  • Yasukuni and textbook controversy (2001)
  • Koizumi visits shrine (2001)
  • Koreans protest (2001)
  • Shrine visit strains China ties (2003)
  • Koizumi says shrine visits are private (2004)
  • "Yasukuni Shrine, Terror and the Future of Japanese Democracy" (Asahi Shimbun editorial, 2006)
  • Two articles by Tanaka Nobumasa:
    • Yasakuni Shrine, Japanese Nationalism, and the Constitution (2002)
    • The Dead Must Not Be Abused: Yasukuni Shrine, the Prime Minister and the Constitution (2004)
  • "A War Shrine, for a Japan Seeking a Not Guilty Verdict" (NY Times, 2005)
  • Japanese Court Rules Against Koizumi's Visits to War Shrine (NY Times, 2005)
• Akakura Mountain Shrine (website for Immortal Wishes: Labor and Transcendence on a Japanese Sacred Mountain, by Ellen Schattschneider)
• Suitengu shrine (pictures)
• Shinto mounted archery ritual
• Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America (Granite Falls, WA)
• Hawaii Kotohira Jinsha / Hawaii Dazaifu Tenmangu (Honolulu, HI)

Buddhism:

Roofs of Ryōanji

• Buddhist philosophy (good introduction to basic Buddhist ideas and history)
• Zen Buddhism links (RLST 360)
• Buddhism links (RLST 260)
• Japanese Buddhism: A to Z Photo Dictionary
• Articles on death in Japanese Buddhism, by Jacqueline I. Stone
• The Evolution of Funerals in Japan: seven short articles from Dharma World (Rissho Kosei-kai magazine)
  
  
• Amida Sūtra (illustrated)
• Jodo Shu
• Jodo Shu Research Institute
  
• Shin Dharma Net
• Jōdō Shinshū Handbook for Laymen
• International Association of Shin Buddhist Studies
• Shin Buddhism (Richard St. Clair)
• Renjoji (Shin Buddhist Temple, Himeji, Japan)
• Amida Net
• "The Buddha of Infinite Light and Life" (Tricycle interview with Taitetsu and Mark Unno)
  
  
• Japanese Buddhist Centers
• Enryakuji (Mt. Hiei)
• The Shikoku Pilgrimage (88 sacred sites):
  • Global Shikoku Internet Project (Steve McCarty)
  • Map
  • Pictures of pilgrims
  • "Pilgrimage ambassadors" appointed
• The Millennium at Zōjōji Temple
• "Hip hop monks in Japan" (CNN)
• Fudō Myō-ō (Immovable Bright King)
• Daruma San in Japan: Japanese Art and Culture: a rather badly organized site on Japanese cultural representations of Daruma (Bodhidharma)
  

New Religions:

Tenrikyō main temple

• Essays on New Religions
• "Christianity as a New Religion"
  by Mark R. Mullins
  
  
• Tenrikyō website
• Tenri University
  
  
• Reiyu-kai
• Rissho Kosei-kai
  • pamphlet
    
    
• Soka Gakkai International (Japan)
• Soka Gakkai International (USA)
• Soka Gakkai International
• Two short books on Soka Gakkai by Daniel Métraux:
  • Soka Gakkai as a Global Community
  • Soka Gakkai International: Japanese Buddhism on a Global Scale (2012)
• Soka Gakkai in America: An Update (The Pluralism Project)
  
• "A Sect's Political Rise Creates Uneasiness in Japan" (NY Times)
  
  
• Aum Shinrikyō / Aleph (University of Virginia)
  • Aleph website

Art:

• Photo Dictionary of Japanese Religious Sculpture and Art
• Japanese art history bibliography
• Shrines, temples, sculpture (informative slide shows)
• Ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world" - color woodblock prints)
• Ukiyo-e exhibit at the Library of Congress
• Sumo ukiyo-e ( MFA Boston; popups must be enabled to view larger images)
• Meiji period woodblock prints
• Modern Japanese prints (exhibit at Northern Illinois University)
• Health-related woodblock prints (University of California, San Francisco)
• "Japanese Art and Its Korean Secret" (review of two exhibits)
• Tokugawa Art Museum: excellent collection of Edo Period (1600-1868) arts
• Scrolls of the Mongol Invasion of Japan (Bowdoin College)
• Chushingura on Stage and in Print (Columbia University)
  

News articles and book reviews:

• "Tokyo Governor Says Tsunami is Divine Punishment—Religious Groups Ignore Him" (Religion Dispatches, 3/17/11)
• "Buddhism With a New Mind-Set" (NY Times, 2006): on incorporation of meditation into American Pure Land Buddhism
• Two articles on the population crisis in Japan and deep-rooted social attitudes (NY Times, 2003):
  • "Insular Japan Needs, but Resists, Immigration"
  • "Japan's Neglected Resource: Female Workers"
• "Specter of a Rearmed Japan Stirs Its Wartime Generation" (NY Times, 2001)
• Sumo Ban on Women (NY Times, 2000)
• "Women Win a Battle, but Job Bias Still Rules Japan" (NY Times, 2000)
• "Still Wary of Outsiders, Japan Expects Immigration Boom" (NY Times, 1999)
• "In Japan, Mired in Recession, Suicides Soar" (NY Times, 1999)
• Beate Sirota Gordon (Nightline, 1999): on the American woman who wrote part of the1947 Japanese Constitution)
• "The Social Contradictions of Japanese Capitalism" (Atlantic Monthly, 1998)
• New trends in Japanese education (Far Eastern Economic Review, 1998)
• New Research on the Nanjing Incident (JapanFocus.org)
  
  
• Review of Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany, and the United States (H-ASIA, 2001)
• Review of The Rape of Nanking (H-ASIA, 1998)
  
  

Sumo:

• Nihon Sumo Kyokai
• O-Sumo
• Sumo World (magazine)
• Sumo Web
• Sumo Web Pages
• Sumo ukiyo-e: MFA Boston; popups must be enabled to view larger images)
• "Sumo East and West" (PBS Independent lens): website for a documentary
  
  
• Taiko Drumming

Japanese Newspapers (in English):

• Japan Times
• Daily Yomiuri
• Asahi Shimbun

Online Journals:

• Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
• Journal of Religion in Japan
• Religion Compass, East Asian Traditions (mostly Japan)
• Japan Focus
• Japan in the World
• Baseball and Besuboru in Japan and the U.S. (special issue of Studies on Asia)
• Religion and Politics in Present-day Japan (special issue of Politics and Religion)

Edit date: 2/20/22