Scholars and the general public are slowly coming to terms with the simple yet puzzling idea that, in practice, Buddhism and violence are not as incompatible as they once seemed. Evidence provided by a growing stream of publications shows how the various Buddhist traditions were and still are far from being immune to such diseases as various strains of nationalism and fundamentalism, iterations of exclusivism, occasional justifications for physical or institutional violence, and even active participation in combat. Recent volumes have already contributed to highlighting the range and depth of this topic, but they mostly focused on South and Central Asia.Footnote 2
As its subtitle Militarism and Buddhism in Modern Asia indicates, this volume focuses less on historical background but provides wider geographical coverage. Its two distinctive features are that it includes scholarship produced in Northern Europe, since both editors are from the University of Oslo, and that it dedicates more space to East Asia than previous volumes.
Given the space limitations and for the sake of busy readers, I will not examine the eleven chapters sequentially, and have reorganized them into geographical areas, which include two contributions on Sri Lanka (chapters 1 and 5), four on Thailand (chapters 2, 4, 6, and 8), with a strong link to Laos in chapter 6, two on Korea (chapters 3 and 11), two on Japan (chapters 7 and 10), and one on China (chapter 9).
Vladimir Tikhonov's introduction engages in the ambitious task of a theoretical discussion of the nature of violence across religions and philosophies, devoting considerable space to Christian instances of war condemnations or justifications. Unfortunately, it does not clearly articulate the common thread that could have woven the chapters into a cohesive whole. His contribution on Korean Buddhism is much more solid.
A. Sri Lanka
The first chapter, by Mahinda Deegalle, focuses on the factors that led to the dramatic militarization of the island before and after the 2009 crushing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. This piece includes the latest developments up to the release of General Fonseka from prison on May 21, 2012. In spite of the author's well-informed perspective, his discussion of the ethnic and political dimensions of the conflict and its aftermath does not provide any analysis of the specifically Buddhist component of the issues at stake, leaving the reader hungry for more insights.
Chapter 5 revisits Sri Lanka, with Iselin Frydenlund's piece showing how leading Buddhist monks played a crucial role in the derailing of the 2002 cease-fire agreement because of their apprehension that it would lead to the creation of a Tamil state. Their language makes disturbing references to matters of “race,” stirring fears that it would “result in the subjugation of the majority race by the minority Tamils and the extermination of the Sinhala race and the Buddha Sasana from this island” (p. 99). A fascinating part of Frydenlund's investigation is her examination of the clergy's justifications of war, including euphemisms like “protection.” Frydenlund challenges scholars who consider instances of Buddhist violence as “deviations” from a supposed “pure” Buddhism, and suggests that “canonical ambiguity and flexibility” offer better tools to understand the relations between the Sangha and the army (p. 113).
B. Thailand and Laos
Marte Nilsen's chapter 2 highlights the deep historical roots of the conflict anchored in the 1902 annexation of the Muslim Sultanate of Patani by Siam. Aside from the utilization of Buddhism to legitimize political power—identified by Nilsen as “the holy trinity in Thai modern history” (nation, religion, and monarchy)—she questions the legitimacy of the presence of “armed monks” within monasteries (p. 48).
Chapter 4 likewise puts the spotlight on the southern Thailand conflict, and Michael Jerryson highlights the government's strategies to reaffirm its grip on the South by utilizing the Sangha. This includes a 2004 Volunteer Monk Program initiated by Queen Sirikit, which involved sending monks to the border provinces, reinforcing the impression that “religion” (sāsana) serves as a euphemism for state-sponsored Buddhism, and that Islam in the south is viewed as an anomaly. This chapter denounces the danger of the government fueling a “muscular form of Buddhism” for its own purposes (p. 89).
Chapter 6 reveals a neglected dimension of Thai Buddhism linked to its Hmong minority and to the Hmong rebels once active in Laos. Ian Baird examines a temple community known for its dedication to the rehabilitation of drug or alcohol addicts. He investigates how this temple supported the violent anticommunist insurgency (p. 121) and provides a wealth of information regarding the temple's first abbot, who was a member of the Thai secret police and traveled in CIA circles (p. 124). One minor reservation is that in spite of his desire to explore how the abbot linked “his extreme right-wing political views with particular Buddhist practice” (p. 121), this rationale remains untouched.
Suwanna Satha-Anand's contribution in chapter 8 revolves around three examples: distinct phases in early Buddhist history, the legitimization of war formulated at the end of World War I when the king sent troops to support the Allies, and the 1976 statement by Kittivuddho apparently providing a justification for killing communists. A fourth element is the rise of fundamentalist tendencies within the Thai clergy. Satha-Anand identifies the Council of Buddhist Organizations of Thailand as “a recently organized ultra-conservative group” promoting exclusivist views (p. 186). The strength of this chapter is its depiction of recent developments, including Kittivuddho's convoluted justification for the elimination of communists (pp. 181–85). What seems a bit problematic is the assumption that the time of the historical Buddha “could be characterized as a moment of non-violence” (p. 175).
C. Korea
Cho Sungtaek's chapter 3 suggests that simplistic depictions of modern Korean Buddhism can be overcome by examining the dilemmas faced by the clergy. Korean Buddhism's need to redefine itself as different from or similar to its Japanese counterpart within the colonial and postcolonial contexts constituted a particularly acute dilemma. Furthermore, the presence of Christianity in Korea complicated the issue because of its claim to be fit as a “national religion.” The objective of this chapter being to fine-tune the analysis of various reformist and modernist movements in Korea, their relation to violence remains tenuous aside from references to omnipresent nationalism.
Vladimir Tikhonovon's chapter 11 highlights a neglected phase of Buddhism in Korea, showing the symbiotic relation between segments of the Korean clergy and the Japanese administration. It questions depictions of the colonial period as a struggle between the “good” Koreans and the “bad” Japanese invaders. Although manipulation of some elements in the Korean clergy cannot be excluded, Tikhonov shows that what he calls the “Faustian bargain” of the Chogye Order contributed to consolidate its lasting influence after the war (pp. 228–29). Tikhonov also introduces discourses on Buddhist modernity formulated by Korean intellectuals trained in Europe (p. 230). He identifies the 1935–45 period as marked by “the closest possible collaboration” between the Korean Buddhist establishment and Japanese authorities while, aside from timid criticism, the clergy supported so-called “Buddhism patriotism” (p. 234). The final section shows the continuity in the Buddhist establishment despite the decolonization of 1945. Similar propaganda was soon recycled during the Korean War by the same individuals who had collaborated with the Japanese administration (p. 242).
D. Japan
In chapter 7, Micah Auerback's “A Closer Look at Zen at War: The Battlefield Chaplaincy of Shaku Sōen in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905)” focuses on Buddhist chaplaincy and on Sōen's account. It suggests a way to “overcome the cycles of accusation and defense that have to strongly colored the study of Japanese Buddhism and modern warfare for the past several decades” (p. 165). Obviously, this constitutes a response to Zen at War, which fulfilled a useful role in eliciting debate but fell short because of its unscholarly one-sidedness.Footnote 3 Auerback perceived the contradiction between Sōen's advice to soldiers that they should “manifest unwavering spiritual strength in battle” and the episodes where “Sōen fails to manifest that strength,” but he interprets them as “curious, if sparse, anomalies” (p. 153). This is useful to support his wider argument that “these are less conscious efforts to present Sōen's human vulnerability, than results of tensions inherent in the very project of a Buddhist battlefield chaplaincy” (p. 153), but also presupposes the debatable idea that all such chaplaincies are similar.
Chapter 10 by Kawase Takaya focuses on “Anti-War and Peace Movements among Japanese Buddhists after the Second World War.” After a broad review of the Buddhist denominations' war collaboration, Kawase puts the spotlight on Risshō Kōseikai and Nipponzan Myōhōji. Although no rationale is provided for why he selected these two particular organizations, cited references suggest a link to their labeling as forms of “socially engaged Buddhism” by Ranjana Mukhopadhyaya. Lumping together these two movements is interesting and provides a glimpse of the few instances of religious figures having adopted a resolutely antiwar stance, although these two examples are not devoid of ambiguity. Surprisingly, Kawase replicates the self-depictions of these two organizations by using the autobiographies of their founders, apparently without questioning how these Nichiren school's offshoots distanced themselves from the nationalistic and exclusivist tone of the earlier Nichiren tradition. Another crucial element missing from this chapter is a clear exposition of the factors that led to the 1970 founding of the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP), aside from the Second Vatican Council. Individuals, such as Imaoka Shin'ichirō (1881–1988), the former secretary of the Japanese Unitarian Association, and Nishida Tenkō (1872–1968), the founder of the Ittōen movement, were instrumental in the emergence of the WCRP, as recognized by Niwano Nikkyō himself.
E. China
Yu Xue's chapter 9, titled “Buddhism and the Justification of War with Focus on Chinese Buddhist History” [sic], is the only contribution dealing with China. This piece reviews passages in Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures that either condemn violence or condone exceptional recourse to violence, with hardly two pages touching Chinese history (pp. 203–4). Its mention of Japanese Buddhism remains superficial with only quotes in approximate English attributed to D. T. Suzuki (p. 203). When dealing with the Japanese invasion of China, monks who waged a guerrilla war suddenly become “brave militants” (p. 203) and dead fighters morph into “Buddhist martyrs who sacrificed their lives in protecting the nation” (p. 204). Some sort of double-standard seems to be at work here.
This volume is capped by Torkel Brekke's conclusion. He offers a wide summary of the eleven chapters (pp. 245–55), followed by a brief outline of ethical problems. Brekke's synthesis does not provide any new leads and mostly offers the hope that further research will produce “more details of how Buddhist organizations and Buddhist individuals engage in actual situations of armed conflict” (p. 255).
Lastly, something must be said about the quality of the copyediting, or rather its glaring absence. Given the exorbitant price Routledge charges for this hardcopy volume listed at $125, there is no excuse for having published a book so poorly copyedited. Its countless syntax errors and typos suggest that a crucial step was skipped before releasing this publication. Aside from this significant issue—which, unfortunately, makes some contributions difficult to read—this volume provides a welcome addition to the growing body of publications examining without complacency the complex interrelation between violence and religious traditions. It also contributes to widening the scope of our understanding by paying more attention to hitherto neglected areas in East Asia, Korea and Japan in particular. Given recent events and their media coverage, forthcoming publications will certainly devote more space to Burma.
