Global Shin Buddhism and Ritual Practice. Histories, Transformations and Localisations

Abstract

This book explores the globalisation of Shin Buddhism (also known as Jōdo Shinshū – the name by which it is referred to in this book) through an examination of ritual practice and its transformations in four main areas: Japan, the United States and Hawai’i, South America, and Europe.

Interrogating conservative and mono-ethnic images of Shin Buddhism, linked to the preservation of Japanese identity in diaspora communities, it offers a complex picture of this form of Buddhism, as multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and ever-changing. Drawing on historical sources, as well as fieldwork conducted in sites from three continents, the study shows the dynamic and transnational routes and local transformations of contemporary Shin Buddhism. The book further considers a range of ritual expressions of Shin Buddhism, including spatiality and architecture; music; embodiment and performance; and ritual adaptations to new virtual environments since the Covid-19 pandemic. All the authors are ordained Shin Buddhist priests, as well as academics, and bring a perspective which is informed both by academic research and by their first-hand experience of Shin Buddhism, including participation in ritual training.

An analysis of Shin Buddhism as a global religion, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of religious studies, Anthropology, and the sociology of religion. It will also be of interest to researchers in Buddhist Studies and Asian Religions, in particular those interested in Buddhism as a world religion and Buddhist modernism.