Introduction
This article analyses the life of Ueda Tenzui (1899–1974), a Shingon Buddhist monk, by examining the reasons for his ordination as a Theravada Buddhist monk in Burma (present-day Myanmar) during the Second World War and his interactions with Burmese monks during this period. It also investigates his post-war activities, such as the collection of the remains of Japanese war dead, as well as continuities and changes in his perception of Theravada Buddhism.Footnote 1 In doing so, it seeks to analyse Japanese Buddhist participation in the war from a different perspective than the usual ‘cooperation versus resistance’ dichotomy.
As a cultural anthropologist on Theravada Buddhist society in the China-Burma border region, I became interested in Ueda Tenzui because of my personal background. I worked as a Japanese language teacher in Burma from 1999 to 2000. Later, while studying at Yangon University of Foreign Languages, I was ordained as a Theravada Buddhist monk twice, once in 2001 and once in 2003. My goal was to practise vipassanā meditation but at that time there were only few Japanese ordained meditators. Now, however, Japanese interest in vipassanā meditation is growing and books about it can be found in ordinary bookshops. The number of Japanese who practise meditation as ordained monks (Pali bhikkhu; Bur. hpongyi) or nuns (Bur. thilashin) has also been increasing, but this is a recent trend.Footnote 2 Thanks to the recent research of Ōsawa Kōji,Footnote 3 I learnt of the existence of Ueda Tenzui, who first served as a Japanese language teacher in wartime Burma and then became an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. I thus became interested in investigating the interaction between Japanese and Burmese people through Buddhism during and after the war and have already published two articles on this topic.Footnote 4
I am not only interested in Ueda Tenzui for the personal reasons mentioned above. Early studies on the relationship between the Japanese war effort and Buddhism include the works of Ichikawa Hakugen and Nakano Kyōtoku who, as Buddhists themselves, wrote about the responsibility of Japanese Buddhists in the war. After the war, they criticized Buddhists’ cooperation with the military, which went unaccounted for more than 20 years.Footnote 5 On the other hand, Nakano Kyōtoku’s edited volume includes a chapter that points out the existence of a small number of Buddhists who actively resisted the war, albeit only on an individual level.Footnote 6 Even in more recent studies, this trend of juxtaposing both cases is followed.Footnote 7
If judged following the dichotomy of ‘cooperation versus resistance’, Ueda Tenzui would be classified as a war collaborator because not only was he active in pacification activities such as Japanese language education in Burma,Footnote 8 during the war he also met and kept in touch afterwards with Mutaguchi Ren’ya, who commanded the 15th Army and was in charge of the Imphal Operation of 1944.Footnote 9 During the war years, Ueda devoted himself to research and study while following the precepts of Theravada Buddhism, which strictly forbids monks to kill. Nevertheless, he did not actively resist the war, instead maintaining a positive stance towards it. Thus, he cannot escape the label of ‘war collaborator’. However, this perspective alone cannot capture his ambivalent inner nature and the continuation and evolution of his thought over time.
This article neither criticizes or defends Ueda but rather focuses on the grey zone between cooperation and resistance as manifested in Ueda’s actions and thinking about the war. I will begin with a discussion of Ueda’s desire to become a Theravada Buddhist monk during the pre-war period. Next, I will analyse Ueda’s involvement in the war by examining his activities as a member of a religious pacification team (Japanese shūkyō senbuhan) and as principal of a Japanese language school. I will then consider his views concerning the practice of Theravada precepts following his ordination as a Burmese monk. Finally, I will investigate continuities and changes in Ueda’s perception of Theravada Buddhism after his participation in post-war activities to recover the remains of the Japanese war dead.
The context of Ueda’s ordination as a Theravada Buddhist monk
Ueda’s relationship with modern Buddhist studies
Who was the first Japanese to be ordained as a Theravada monk in Burma? Although there is no definite answer at the moment, Ueda Tenzui identified himself as the first Japanese to have been ordained in Burma. Ueda was born in 1899 in Toyonaga village, Atetsu county (Okayama Prefecture), and entered the Mio Temple in his home village in 1914 ‘for the simple reason that if I went to the temple I could go to school’. Mio Temple belonged to the Kogi Shingon sect, a school of esoteric Buddhism, and the Ueda family were its parishioners (J. danka).Footnote 10
The following year, in 1915, the abbot of Mio Temple took Ueda to Kōyasan, the main temple of the Kogi Shingon sect, to start his education. Ueda studied at Kōyasan Junior High School, an educational institution of the Kogi Shingon sect, and then at Kōyasan University, graduating in 1924.Footnote 11 During his student years, he was greatly influenced by Kanayama Bokushō (1876–1958), a renowned scholar of esoteric Buddhism who was an expert in both practice and doctrine. Ueda expressed his deep respect for Kanayama by stating that ‘in his studies, he was extremely enthusiastic and explored the true meanings of esoteric Buddhism and the scriptural commentaries; his pursuit of truth was always based on considerations of practice’ and ‘he never dissociated practice from learning and learning from practice’.Footnote 12 Kanayama’s influence is visible in Ueda’s later emphasis on both theoretical and practical understanding of the Vinaya Pitaka (the corpus of scriptures concerning monastic precepts in Theravada Buddhism). However, while at university, his research interests remained within the framework of Shingon Buddhism, and the topic of his graduation thesis was ‘The contradictions in esoteric Buddhism’.
He later transferred to the Department of Indian Philosophy in the Faculty of Letters at Tōkyō Imperial University, which was the foremost research institute for Buddhist studies in Japan. He graduated in 1927 under the guidance of leading Buddhist scholars of the time, such as Takakusu Junjirō (1866–1945), Kimura Taiken (1881–1930), and Nagai Makoto (1881–1970). The title of his graduation thesis was ‘A study of the precepts’. In the same year, he entered the graduate school of the University of Tōkyō, where he engaged in the study of the Pali language and precepts, mainly under Nagai Makoto’s guidance.Footnote 13 He was commissioned by his teacher Nagai, who was travelling abroad, to write a large part of the Bukkyō no hōritsu shisō (Legal thought of Buddhism), co-authored with Nagai and Ono Seiichirō.Footnote 14 In 1933, he was appointed assistant professor at Kōyasan University, where he worked on the translations of the ‘Jūjuritsu’ (The ten precepts and rules) as a part of the wider publication Kokuyaku issaikyō (A Japanese translation of the complete Buddhist scriptures).Footnote 15 Moreover, he translated volumes one, two, and five of the Nanden daizōkyō (Pali Tipitaka) as part of a translation project of the Vinaya Pitaka.Footnote 16 Finally, in 1937 he became a professor at Kōyasan University.
Ueda had started to study the Pali language and the precepts largely because of the influence of Nagai Makoto, his professor during his studies at the Tōkyō Imperial University. Therefore, I will briefly introduce Nagai’s background. After entering university, Nagai studied Sanskrit with Anezaki Masaharu (1873–1949), a religious studies researcher who had studied in Germany. Nagai also studied Sanskrit and Pali with Takakusu Junjirō, who had learnt modern Buddhist research methods from Max Mueller (1823–1900) while studying in England. Later, Nagai obtained the Thai version of the Pāṭimokkha (the Pali monastic code) from the Buddhist scholar Shiio Benkyō (1876–1971) and translated it into Japanese for his graduation thesis. While pursuing a research career, Nagai collaborated with Takakusu on a comparative study of the Samantapāsādikā, a commentary of the Vinaya Pitaka, and the Chinese commentary Shanjianlü piposha, in an attempt to overturn the previously held theory that no Buddhist scriptures existed in direct Chinese translation from the Pali language. He also started a comparative study of the Pali and Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures and, together with his student Mizuno Kōgen (1901–2006), he is known for his work in revising and publishing the Samantapāsādikā through the Pali Text Society.Footnote 17 Furthermore, he published the Dokushū pārigo bunpō (A Pali grammar for studying on your own),Footnote 18 and, together with Tachibana Shundō, a professor at Komazawa University, he was regarded as one of the two greatest scholars of Pali Buddhist scriptures of the time.Footnote 19 After that, Nagai travelled to the United States in 1931, to England in 1932, and on his way back to India, he visited Yangon and Mandalay in Burma for a short time in 1933.Footnote 20
As mentioned above, although Nagai had never studied in Europe or the United States, he learnt modern methods to approach Buddhist studies from Takakusu, who had studied in England. Moreover, he made important scholarly contributions thanks to his comparative work on Pali and Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures. He also had direct experience of Buddhism in Asia gained on his return trip from the United States and Europe. This was not uncommon among Buddhists working in academia at the time.
Nevertheless, especially after the end of the nineteenth century, more and more Buddhists studied abroad in South and Southeast Asia for long periods, either to pursue Buddhist studies independently without studying in the West or in search of Buddhist scriptures. After returning to Japan, these scholars worked in the Buddhist universities of their home sects.Footnote 21 Among them was Shaku Kōzen (1849–1924), who lived in Ceylon from 1886 to 1893 to study Theravada Buddhism and the Pali language, and in 1890 became the first Japanese Theravada Buddhist monk. However, Mizuno Kōgen, who studied Pali under Nagai and Tachibana while a student at Tōkyō Imperial University, made the following comments on these monks who wanted to study Theravada Buddhism in Ceylon and Thailand without having mastered modern Buddhist studies:
Studying in Ceylon or Thailand, one only learns about Buddhism from the inside and does not study its wider spectrum in connection with Sanskrit Buddhism, Indology, or Indo-European languages in general, as is the case of the Pali studies in the West. Thus, the natural range of the Pali studies is narrow and its potential is limited. In addition, at that time, the purpose of studying abroad was not purely academic, but more practical, such as learning about the elements of Southern Buddhism—its doctrines, rituals, customs, etc.—and creating partnerships. Therefore, it seems that the monks that studied abroad did not play any significant role in the development of Pali studies in Japan. The emergence of modern-style Buddhist studies in our country was due to scholars who had studied Western scholarship.Footnote 22
Mizuno’s statement displays a disregard for those who studied in Ceylon or Thailand to learn Pali; for him, unless one ‘had studied Western scholarship’, one ‘only learns about Buddhism from the inside’, which limits the ‘potential’ these experiences have for Pali studies.
The uniqueness of Ueda
In this section, I will clarify the characteristics of Ueda Tenzui’s research by comparing it with the career of Nagai and other Buddhist scholars of the time. At the beginning of his career, Ueda, just like his teacher Nagai, carried out comparative studies and translated the Vinaya Pitaka. He also published a thesis in which he highlighted that the Vinaya Pitaka preserves the oldest version of the monastic code in a highly organized fashion.Footnote 23 This means that he was an elite researcher active in academia, trained in modern Buddhist studies at Tōkyō Imperial University and educated in Western research methods. However, in addition to his scholarly interests, Ueda also had a strong desire to experience Theravada Buddhist in practice. Yoshioka Chikyō, a Shingon priest who had been ordained in Thailand from 1936 to 1939, commented on Ueda’s decision to study abroad just before his departure to Thailand in 1941:Footnote 24
It has long been known that the simultaneous acquisition of both theoretical and practical learning is the quintessence of learning, which can only be achieved through practice. It would be disappointing if the professor [i.e. Ueda] were not to carry out his work on the precepts, which he has dedicated his life to and has conducted in a most plain and simple manner, to its utmost potential. In particular, in order to be true to the precepts, this means practicing them rather than merely studying them. To go or study abroad to gain a reputation, as is so commonly held [to be desirable]. But it [i.e. Ueda’s trip abroad] is in fact the manifestation of the professor’s own search for wisdom (J. egaku) and striving for the true dharma.Footnote 25
Concerning his own experiences, Yoshioka stated that he wished to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand ‘to experience the authentic life of a monk of Southern Buddhism’.Footnote 26 The details of his trip to Thailand are not clear, but Fujii Shinsui, a Shingon priest who served as the first keeper of a Japanese ossuary in Bangkok before the war, affirms that soon after the ossuary was completed, Yoshioka Chikyō, who had been Fujii’s classmate at Kōyasan Middle School, ‘repeatedly requested to experience Buddhism in Thailand. His enthusiasm moved me and I decided to welcome him.’Footnote 27 Yoshioka lived at the Japanese ossuary of Thailand in Bangkok, but after his return to Japan, he went back to being the abbot of Hongan Temple in Tokushima City and ceased any contact with the academic world. Footnote 28 In an article published after his return to Japan, Yoshioka spoke highly of the Thai monks’ strict adherence to the Buddhist precepts, affirming that ‘the Thai monks may be weak in scholarship and theory, but when it comes to the spirit of liberation [from samsara] and to the practice of monastic life, which is the core of Buddhism, they are far beyond the reach of the Japanese and Chinese monks’.Footnote 29 From Yoshioka’s perspective, Ueda’s wish to study in Thailand to ‘practise’ the precepts was highly commendable, unlike ‘studying abroad to gain a reputation’ which was the goal of researchers in the academic world at the time.
Why was Fujii Shinsui living in Bangkok before the war? In 1932 Fujii studied Buddhism with no specific sectarian focus at Tōyō University and ‘wished to visit India and Ceylon, the birthplaces of Buddhism, to experience what Buddhism was in practice’.Footnote 30 Fujii was also greatly inspired when he met L. Adams Beck, a British writer who had travelled to Japan after visiting Ceylon, Tibet, and Beijing, and who stayed at a lodge on Kōyasan. Just at that time came an offer to study Theravada Buddhism in Thailand, and Fujii was selected to take it up. ‘[I] decided to go to Thailand because I thought that if I learned Pali, I would be able to read the original scriptures of Buddhism and that it would be useful in understanding the essence of Shakyamuni’s teachings.’Footnote 31 Fujii went to Bangkok and studied Thai and Pali language while living at Wat Anong Karam, and in 1933 he became a monk in the Theravada tradition.Footnote 32 After that, his health deteriorated and he returned to Mahayana Buddhist monkhood in 1935. Nevertheless, in 1936 he was offered the opportunity to become the keeper of the Japanese ossuary built by the Japanese Association in Bangkok on the grounds of Wat Liap. After returning to Japan in 1946, he served as the chief priest of Zōtoku Temple in Yokohama but, like Yoshioka, he did not work in academia. It is important to point out here that Fujii, Yoshioka, and Ueda, who were ordained as Theravada Buddhist monks before and during the war, were all Shingon monks. However, rather than responding to requests from their denomination, they were personally motivated, wanting to ‘understand the essence of Shakyamuni’s teachings’,Footnote 33 to experience ‘the original life of a bhikkhu’,Footnote 34 and to inherit ‘Shakyamuni’s lineage of precepts, which is the greatest joy for a monk’.Footnote 35 They sought to experience in practice the ascetic life that Shakyamuni had led. They thus shared in the desire to ‘rediscover’ Shakyamuni Buddha that had marked Japanese Buddhists from the late nineteenth century onwards.Footnote 36 However, Ueda’s singularity is that he experienced a life of ascetic practice as a Theravada monk, in addition to learning modern Buddhist studies and working in academia, even becoming president of Kōyasan University after his return to Japan.
After him, more Japanese became researchers following their ordination as Theravada monks. At about the same time as Ueda, in 1943, Sasaki Kyōgo, a Jōdo Shinshū priest and lecturer at Ōtani University, went to Thailand on an academic exchange for the Greater Japan Buddhist Federation (J. Dai Nippon bukkyōkai), supported by the Ministry of Greater East Asia (J. Daitōashō). While ordained as a Theravada Buddhist monk, he lived at the Japanese ossuary until 1946 and once back to Japan, he returned to teach at Ōtani University.Footnote 37 In the post-war period, there were others such as Endō Yūjun, who became a professor at Taishō University after being ordained in Burma in 1957;Footnote 38 Ikeda Masataka, who continued to study Burmese Buddhism as a high school teacher and part-time university lecturer;Footnote 39 and Ishii Yoneo, who became a professor at Kyōto University and Sophia University after being ordained in Thailand in 1958.Footnote 40 Ueda can be said to have been their forerunner.
Activities as a member of a religious pacification team in Thailand and Myanmar
In November 1941, Ueda travelled to Bangkok as an overseas researcher from Kōyasan University. He explained his objectives, stating that, ‘I wanted to directly experience life in the monastic community because I had already been studying the precepts and monastic life.’Footnote 41 Upon his arrival in Bangkok, Ueda was welcomed by the aforementioned Fujii Shinsui.Footnote 42 However, in December of the same year, just as Ueda realized his dream of studying in Thailand, the Pacific War broke out and the Japanese army advanced into the country. In 1942, religious pacification teams arrived in Bangkok, about which Ueda said:
Siam and Burma are regions of so-called ‘Southern Buddhism,’ and reverence in Buddhism and Buddhist monks among their people goes beyond our imagination. Therefore, the General Staff Headquarters at that time thought that using Buddhism for pacification would be the most effective way to govern these areas, and they came up with the idea of establishing religious pacification teams. As a trial, about forty young monks were selected to form a group and dispatched as an advance party. In November 1941, the group was mobilised for military service, and on 3 December, they departed for South-East Asia, with war breaking out while they were enroute off the coast of Hong Kong. On 18 December, the pacification group arrived in Saigon and reached Bangkok by truck on 3 January 1942. The group leader, Colonel Kobayashi Chōji, was an instructor assigned to Okayama Medical College, and the other six officers were all priests recruited for the pacification team. Nevertheless, it was a baffling situation indeed, because neither the group leader nor the members knew what this pacification mission was supposed to do.Footnote 43
The pacification teams were part of the Special Services Division (J. Tokumu kikan) of the Japanese military and had already been used on the Chinese front. Their task was to enter villages and towns that had been subdued by the military, soothe any anti-Japanese sentiment among the local population, and create trust in the Japanese military.Footnote 44 The army tried to implement a similar strategy on the Burmese front, where there were many devoted Buddhists. However, Ueda’s position was a little different from that of the other members of the team, because he had accepted the invitation to join the pacification team in Bangkok as an army-commissioned officer on the condition that he would mainly conduct research. Thus, he did not participate in the pacification operations in Bangkok but, with Fujii Shinsui’s assistance, began to study the Thai language and Buddhism while living at the Japanese ossuary.Footnote 45
When the Japanese army marched into Burma, the leader of the pacification team sought to ascertain Ueda’s intentions, asking him: ‘as the Thai-Burma border road will be opened soon, the pacification team will also be moving on to Burma shortly. What do you think to do? I would be happy to have you with us, but it is all right if you decide to stay here. Please, think about it.’ Ueda wondered whether he should continue his studies in Thailand, but decided that, ‘If I miss this opportunity, I will never have the chance to go to Burma. At least, I should go there for two or three months and then return to Thailand to continue my research.’Footnote 46 It seems clear that Ueda, who was attached to the Imperial Army, was not forced to follow the pacification team to Burma, but rather it was his own choice to do so; and while the military used Ueda, a Buddhist, for its pacification operations, Ueda can be said to have also ‘used’ the military to further his own research project.
In March 1942, Rangoon (now Yangon) fell to the Japanese army, and five days later the pacification team arrived in the city. Once there, the team distributed food and basic necessities provided by the military headquarters, issued ‘certificates of good citizenship’ (J. ryōminshō) to Chinese and Indian residents of Rangoon, and provided job placement services for the unemployed in order to placate the city’s residents.Footnote 47 In particular, the aim of the team was to make contact with the Burmese monks and develop a religion-centric pacification strategy. In order to establish cooperation between Japanese and Burmese monks, a meeting was held at the Shwedagon pagoda in which 10 Japanese and about 180 Burmese monks participated. Among the Burmese clerics was Aletawya Sayadaw, who delivered a sermon.Footnote 48 A prominent nationalist monk in Rangoon, Aletawya Sayadaw was later elected as head of the Great Sangha Association (Bur. Maha Thanga Ahpwe) established in 1943.Footnote 49 Ueda explains that the Burmese monks cooperated with the Japanese army because Burma was a British colony at the time and they thought the Japanese army would liberate them. They also considered the Japanese to be fellow Asians and ‘companions in the faith in Buddhism’.Footnote 50 After the convention at the Shwedagon pagoda, cooperative committees of monks were established in the districts, and ‘people’s gatherings’ (J. minshūkai) were organized. Team leaders and Japanese priests wearing their robes gave lectures at the ‘people’s gatherings’, in which Ueda participated from time to time.Footnote 51
Meanwhile, Ueda proposed the establishment of a Japanese-language school to the leader of his pacification team, which was approved. Therefore, in June 1942, he became the headteacher of the first Japanese language school in Rangoon, where he taught Japanese for over a year. The purpose of the language school was ‘to promote the Japanese language in Burma, to facilitate the daily activities of the Japanese and Burmese people in this new Burma, and to spread the Japanese spirit and culture through the language, thereby contributing to the establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere’.Footnote 52 Of the first batch of 1,067 applicants to the school, 543 were accepted, and of the 1,847 applicants in the second batch, 1,210 were accepted. The first batch of successful applicants included 80 monks (with no unsuccessful applicants) and 170 monks in the second batch (with 184 unsuccessful applicants).Footnote 53 Ueda affirms that ‘it was astonishing to see the school flourish in response to the demands of the Burmese people at the time’.Footnote 54
When the Burmese Central Executive Administration (J. Chūō gyōseifu) headed by Ba Maw was established in August 1942, the Japanese Inspectorate of Military Administration (J. Gunsei kanbu) was assigned to lead the Burmese administration. Accordingly, the pacification teams were disbanded in July, and team members returned to Japan, but Ueda voluntarily continued his work at the Japanese language school as an affiliate of the Military Administration. He was busy helping the students who had completed the one-year course at the school to find employment as military interpreters or in companies operating in Burma, even taking care of students’ personal issues. During the one year and four months that Ueda was in office as headteacher, the number of students enrolled in the school reached approximately 3,000. A total of 600 monks were also enrolled, and a dormitory named ‘Nichigoji’ (Japanese language temple) was established next to the school to train outstanding young monks.Footnote 55 By August 1943, dozens of Japanese language schools had been established throughout Burma, and many language teachers were dispatched from Japan. However, after Burma’s ‘declaration of independence’ on 1 August 1943, the Inspectorate of Military Administration was dissolved. Ueda’s contract to teach Japanese was terminated and he was allowed to return to Japan.Footnote 56
It should be noted here that Ueda was headteacher of the Japanese language school at the beginning of the occupation, when the Burmese people had high expectations that Japan would end British colonial rule and was a country that was both ‘Asian’ and ‘Buddhist’. Especially after the failure of the Imphal Operation between March and July 1944, when the Japanese forces began to lose ground, ‘the distrust and disappointment of the citizens and the government toward the Japanese military grew’, and ‘even when [new] schools were opened, not a single student would enrol’.Footnote 57
Life as an ordained Burmese monk
After resigning as headteacher of the Japanese language school, Ueda wanted to use the last few months of his stay in Burma to study Burmese Buddhism, which had been his original intention. He was granted special permission to stay in Burma by Tagami Tatsuo, who was the head of the Culture and Education Bureau of the Military Administration.Footnote 58 From October 1943, he spent two-and-a-half months at Weikzalinkara Temple in Mandalay, where he ‘isolated himself from all worldly affairs and focused on the study and research of Burmese Buddhism’. After a hectic year-and-a-half spent as a member of the pacification team and headteacher of a Japanese language school, Ueda lived quietly at the temple and expressed his gratitude for being able to devote himself to his research in the midst of an escalating war. He states, ‘I am grateful that my spirit and my body can get some rest and that I can go on with my original mission. For some time, I will not hear any news on the course of the war, nor will I be aware of any changes in the world. However, trusting the valour of the Imperial Army, I will single-mindedly pursue my own path, which one day may be again directed toward public service.’Footnote 59
Ven. Withokda (1904–1969), the abbot of Weikzalinkara Temple, slightly younger than Ueda, was an eminent scholar-monk in Burma who had spent four years studying in Ceylon and India.Footnote 60 Thanks to his studies abroad, Withokda was also able to communicate directly with Ueda in English. For Ueda, whose plan was ‘to see first-hand the realities of Burmese Buddhism, to listen to the opinions of Burmese scholars, and especially, to observe and practice himself the precepts as much as possible’, Withokda was ‘the best teacher and assistant I could have had’.Footnote 61 During his stay in Mandalay, Ueda visited the northern part of Shan state with Ven. Withokda, where he observed Buddhist rituals and religious events, and he also visited the ancient city of Pagan.Footnote 62
In December, Ueda was ordained as a monk at Uminkoze in Sagaing by Withokda’s teacher, Abhayārāma Sayadaw (1880–1944). Abhayārāma was an authority on Sanskrit and Pali, had studied in India and Ceylon, and had been awarded the honorific monastic title Aggamahāpaṇḍita in 1934. He published many books and was said to be the foremost learned monk in Burma at the time. He was also a great elder of the Shwegyin school, known for its strict adherence to the precepts.Footnote 63 Here, Ueda realized his long-cherished dream of training as a Burmese Buddhist monk, under the dharma name Vajirabuddhi, for 90 days until March 1944. All the negotiations and preparations for the ordination were done by Ven. Withokda to whom Ueda repeatedly expresses his gratitude in his writings: ‘He is really like a brother to me, and he feels as if he sent a brother from his own home to ordain. I too felt as if I was sent from my home in Mandalay by my brother. I cannot express my gratitude enough for the way he took care of my ordination ceremony, my life [in Mandalay], and all the help I needed for my research.’Footnote 64 Ueda expressed his feelings about finally being ordained as a Theravada Buddhist monk in Burma, which he had not been able to do in Thailand due to the outbreak of war, in the following way:
I previously lived in a temple in Thailand for a little more than a month and wanted to experience the life of a bhikkhu [monk] in Thailand, but I came to Burma during the Greater East Asia War and eventually stayed here for nearly two years. And now, in Burma, I have fulfilled my wish and I have become a monk of Southern Buddhism. Burma truly is the land with which I have a karmic bond; my temple is located on the top of Mount Sagaing with its beautiful scenery, and my master is the foremost scholar monk in Burma, known by all Burmese Buddhists. My karmic bonds determined that I was ordained. Now, after practicing Southern Buddhism, I became the first Japanese ordained as an orthodox Burmese Bhikkhu wearing three robes and carrying a bowl. I do not have the words to describe my joy.Footnote 65
However, Abhayārāma Sayadaw suddenly passed away right after Ueda entered the priesthood, so he spent two hours each day—in total a hundred hours—interviewing Sishin Sayadaw, who had also been awarded the honorific title of Aggamahāpaṇḍita and was considered to be the second most renowned scholar-monk after Abhayārāma, instead. Ueda asked questions based on his notes on the study of the precepts, and listened to Sishin’s explications about Burmese Buddhism in general.Footnote 66 Sishin not only explained with great clarity the issues concerning the kathina robe, the kitchen, the sima (a boundary dividing sacred and profane space), and the silk robes, which Ueda had not been able to understand from his book studies, but he also clarified questions about the interpretation of the Vinaya Pitaka. In this way, Ueda asserted that he was able to correct many mistakes made by Western and Japanese scholars in their previous translations of the Pāṭimokkha, the basic code of monastic discipline. He also affirmed that ‘the true meaning of something as factual and practical as the precepts cannot be understood unless you see it in action’, and that ‘for me, the study and life as a bhikkhu in Sagaing were more important than ever before’.Footnote 67 After working on a comparative study of the Vinaya Pitaka and its Chinese translation, and after translating the Vinaya Pitaka into Japanese, it must have been a great joy for Ueda to have his long-held questions finally answered. The interviews with Sishin were conducted in English and Burmese with the help of the retired Burmese government official U Hosein, who held Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Law degrees.Footnote 68 As mentioned above, during his stay in Bangkok, Ueda studied Thai while staying at the temple, but in Burma, he was kept busy as a member of the pacification team and headteacher of the Japanese language school, and he probably had not been able to learn enough Burmese to conduct the interviews on his own.
Ueda’s life as an ordained monk focused mainly on his interviews with Sishin, but he was required to strictly follow the precepts. How did he view this austere life? I turn now to investigate Ueda’s ideas about Theravada monastic life based on his Nanpō bukkyō shūgakuki (Records of Southern Buddhist studies) published in 1950 after his return to Japan.
First, he shows special appreciation for a life of ascetic practice based strictly on the precepts: ‘I thought it was ridiculous not to kill even a mosquito, but just chasing the mosquitos away when they come buzzing by is a refined thing to do.’Footnote 69
However, although Ueda maintained the precepts rigorously during his monastic life in Burma, he often criticized this lifestyle:
It is this clinging to the precepts that seems to be the greatest flaw in our times. I can feel first-hand why Mahayana Buddhism had to arise. It is as if I can literally hear the screams of blame coming from Mahayana Buddhism against the Śrāvakas [i.e. adherents of the Theravada].Footnote 70
He especially took issue with the Burmese monks’ refusal to cooperate directly in the war effort because of their strict adherence to the precept of non-violence:
Herein lies the great obstacle of Hinayana Buddhism to social matters. When the Burmese monks were asked by the Japanese military to cooperate in the war effort, they refused to cooperate directly, saying that their precepts did not allow them to preach to the Burmese people to win the war or defeat the enemy. (However, they were willing to cooperate in any way that did not formally go against the precepts).Footnote 71
What follows is an extract from the interviews with Sishin regarding the precepts. In this session Ueda asks a question and Sishin answers:Footnote 72
Q When a monk tells his followers that ‘working for the good of society and the nation or sacrificing oneself for the good of others is as beneficial as building a pagoda and making offerings to monks,’ or when he himself performs such activities, is he doing a good thing?
A There are three types of meritorious acts: acts for the benefit of society, acts for the benefit of one’s relatives, and offerings made to Buddha. Of course, monks should also preach actions that benefit society, but if we compare these three, the third is the most important from the standpoint of one’s own liberation and attaining nirvana, as offerings to Buddha are for one’s own benefit. It is important to underline that although monks may preach to the people to work for the nation and to engage in such activities themselves, the Buddhist precepts cannot be broken for these reasons. Working for the nation is a form of offering, and by reinforcing the precepts through this action, we strengthen our samadhi.
Q Mahayana Buddhism teaches that there are three kinds of precepts: the shōritsugikai [precept for the maintenance of restraint] (to stay away from evil), the shōzenbōkai [precept for the cultivation of good qualities] (to increase goodness), and the shōjushōkai [precept for the improvement of other beings] (to act for the good of society and the nation). Are there such precepts in Southern Buddhism?
A There are two kinds of sikkhāpada (precepts): the first are the precepts for avoiding evil, and the second are the precepts for cultivating good behaviour (sajikai in Japanese or cāritta-sīla in Pali). However, doing good for others or for the nation is not a precept, but belongs to the principles of kindness (Pali mettā, that is, furthering people’s happiness) and compassion (Pali karunā, helping people avoid suffering). These two principles are important but we do not break the precepts for them, this is a very important point. For example, when you see a frog being eaten by a snake, if you kill the snake, the frog will live. Saving the frog is an act of compassion, but since it involves killing, it requires the breaking of a precept, therefore you should not kill the snake.
Q This is the opposite of the Mahayana precepts. The Mahayana teaches that even if one violates the precepts at times, one must always save sentient beings.
A (The Sayadaw laughs and says) The Buddha taught that it is better to die than to violate the precepts.
Thus, there was a great difference of opinion between Ueda, who insisted that it is acceptable to violate the precept of non-killing to save sentient beings, and Sishin Sayadaw, who insisted that the precept of ahimsa (non-killing) is inviolable under any circumstances.
Let me explain Ueda Tenzui’s view of the precepts as reflected in his writings. Even before his ordination in Burma, Ueda had been critical of ‘Hinayana Buddhism’ regarding ‘the idea that the precepts should be observed with absolute strictness’. He opposed this idea, stating that ‘Mahayana Buddhism arose as a reaction to a strictly monastic Buddhism, which had forgotten spirituality, and was precept-driven.’ Mahayana Buddhism ‘rejects the formalism of the precepts of the Lesser Vehicle (Hinayana Buddhism) and strives to internally grasp the true spirit of Buddhism’; furthermore, it refuses the self-interest and monasticism of Hinayana Buddhism in favour of altruism and a lay-orientation.Footnote 73 Therefore, instead of considering all killing as formally evil, the Mahayana holds that killing an evil person does not constitute a violation of the precept of non-killing; rather, one gets merit by accomplishing such an action. Mahayana Buddhism allows one to ‘kill one life to save many’. Or, as Ueda explained, ‘it is allowed to sacrifice a lesser life for a greater or more valuable one’.Footnote 74 He expressed this concept in a book published in 1940, and he probably continued to hold this idea when he was ordained a few years later, in 1943–1944. Thus, his cooperation in the war was affirmed as an expression of the spirit of ‘Mahayana Buddhism’, whereas he judged ‘Hinayana Buddhism’ poorly because of its refusal to cooperate in the war due to the strict observation of the precepts.
The expression ‘kill one life to save many lives’ (J. issetsu tashō/issatsu tashō) used by Ueda comes from the Yugashijiron (Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra) of the Yogacara school of Mahayana Buddhism.Footnote 75 This idea was used widely at the time by contemporary Japanese Buddhists regardless of sectarian affiliation to support the war. In his writings of the same period, Manai Kakushin, a fellow Shingon priest, stated that although killing is not permitted by the precepts, it is not only acceptable to take life as a way to punish vice but it also produces an extraordinary amount of merit. This is claimed in the Rishukyō (Prajñāpāramitā-naya-śatapañcaśatikā, Principles and Meanings of the Sutras) to which the Shingon school attaches great importance.Footnote 76 According to Itō Shōtoku, who analysed the Shingon priests’ support for the war, the idea that war in Buddhism is allowed when based on moral principles spread after the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894/1895.Footnote 77
Similarly, with regard to sexual intercourse, the Dainichikyōsho (Commentary on the Mahavairocana Sutra) reports the story of a bodhisattva who helped a young girl reach enlightenment by submitting to her lustful desires because sexual intercourse itself is not always evil in Mahayana Buddhism. Ueda affirms that:
It would be a great mistake to think that the fundamental meaning of Buddhism lies in abstinence, especially for what concerns the prohibition of eating meat and having marital relations. If this were the case, only a small group of ascetics would be able to enter Buddhism, and the vast majority would be excluded. Are the fundamental teachings of Buddhism as small as this? Buddha’s dharma is consistent for the monkhood and the laity, and encompasses heaven and earth. If liberation were to be attainable only through absolute asceticism, then Buddhism would be aiming to eradicate all human life. By no means is the fundamental meaning of Buddhism this limited. In the midst of this vibrant life, the spirit of Mahayana Buddhism has to be directed toward the establishment of the Pure Land of Mysterious Adornment (Mahavairocana’s Pure Land）in this world.Footnote 78
Ueda acknowledges that, on one side, Kūkai (774–835), the founder of the Shingon school, adhered strictly to the ‘Hinayana’ precepts, but on the other side, he also argued that the precepts—which are merely a skilful means (upāya/hōben) from the point of view of esoteric Buddhism—need to be adapted to the times and the places, rather than being followed blindly. The fundamental precepts of the Shingon school are the sanmaya precepts, which are unique to esoteric Buddhism. Ueda asserts that ‘we should believe in the absolute value of human nature (the principle of bonshō fuji [a Buddha and an ordinary person share the same nature]), seek enlightenment, seek the Dharma, help all sentient beings, and let our lives be guided by the enlightened mind (J. bodaishin), which vows firmly to serve society and the nation’.Footnote 79
Although Ueda was critical of Theravada Buddhism, especially of its precepts, he practised strict observance of them as an ordained monk of Burmese Buddhism, and never ‘guided’ the Burmese monks’ practice or requested their cooperation with the Japanese military. Yet he met three times with Mutaguchi Ren’ya, the commander of the Imphal Operation, twice during his stay in Mandalay before and after his ordination, and once during his ordination in Sagaing. Mutaguchi placed great importance on religion in his operations in Burma and was very interested in Burmese Buddhism.Footnote 80 Ueda was invited to Maymyo, the army’s headquarters, where Mutaguchi explained that he was planning to form a corps of young monks to cooperate with the Japanese army because the monks ‘were too limited by these petty precepts’ and showed a passive attitude that was impeding Burma’s development.Footnote 81 On his second visit to the headquarters, Ueda, dressed in Burmese monk’s robes, gave a lecture to the assembled officers after receiving an explanation about a planned ‘First Aid Training School’ (J. Eisei kinmuin yōseijo) where young Burmese monks would be trained as medical orderlies and assigned to hospitals either on the front lines or in the rear areas, as needed. After the start of the Imphal Operation, Ueda visited the headquarters for the third time and was informed that 86 monks living in Mandalay had applied for the position of medical orderly.Footnote 82 In Ueda’s Nanpō Bukkyō shūgakuki published in 1950, there is no mention of these meetings with Mutaguchi or the medical orderlies, but Ōsawa Kōji’s research led to the discovery of an unpublished manuscript, the ‘Chapter Five record of the organisation of a Monks’ Corps—General Mutaguchi Ren’ya and Burmese Buddhism’, which reports as follows:
I do not know how this new school has progressed and how well it has performed since I left Mandalay early in April for home, but the fact that a school like this was established and young monks competed to enter it shows the great improvement that took place as a result of the war in the reluctant and aloof Burmese Buddhism. The establishment of this school may become a major event in the future history of Burmese Buddhism.Footnote 83
In other words, Ueda saw promise in the fact that in among the Burmese monks who were generally ‘reluctant’ to participate in the war, there were young monks who wanted to cooperate as ‘medical orderlies’. In March 1944, Ueda’s time as a monk in Burma came to an end. When he returned to his life as a Japanese monk wearing Japanese robes, Ueda felt invigorated. At the disrobing ceremony, he declared out loud the following in Japanese to an audience that was, of course, unable to understand him:
I am Japanese again. I have abandoned the precepts of the Lesser Vehicle and am back to being a Mahayana Japanese monk. From now on, I will renounce the lesser precepts that I have received temporarily and conduct myself as a person and monk of Japan. The masters who have not yet reached maturity to attain perfect realisation (J. enki) may not be able to understand it, but when the time comes when they have reached maturity, they, too, will abandon the lesser precepts and follow the Mahayana precepts, just as I have done.Footnote 84
It is clear that, even after three months of monastic life, Ueda still regarded Mahayana as superior to ‘Hinayana’ (the ‘lesser vehicle’) Buddhism, as he had already expressed in his pre-war writings. He also sums up his life as a Theravada monk by affirming that the Burmese will eventually accept Mahayana Buddhism, although they may not yet understand it.
After completing his training, Ueda returned to Japan in June 1944, carrying a Buddha statue and the Tripitaka donated by the Burma Buddhist Association. He returned to his position as a professor at Kōyasan University. During Ueda’s time as a Theravada monk, Sagaing had not yet become a battleground. However, after the failure of the Imphal Operation, which began in March of the same year, at about the same time as his disrobing ceremony as a Theravada monk—Ueda referred to it as his ‘Return to the Mahayana Ceremony’Footnote 85—the Japanese army suffered a total of about 180,000 casualties in Burma at the hands of the Allied counter-offensive.
Recovering soldiers’ remains in the post-war period and changes in Ueda Tenzui’s thought
In the previous section, I introduced Ueda’s views on Burmese Buddhism based on the accounts found in his Nanpō Bukkyō shūgakuki written just after the end of the war and published in 1950. In Biruma senseki junreiki—Jiyū to heiwa he no michi (Pilgrimage to the Burmese war sites: The road to freedom and peace), which Ueda published in 1957, 12 years after the war, he repeats some of the content of his previous publication, but made some significant changes in how he expressed his views. For example, as already mentioned, at the beginning of Ueda’s activities in the pacification team in Rangoon, he held a meeting in which about 180 Burmese monks participated. In Nanpō Bukkyō shūgakuki, Ueda explains that the meeting was a success because all the eminent monks attended and made a resolution expressing their gratitude and willingness to cooperate with the Japanese army.Footnote 86 On the other hand, in Biruma senseki junreiki, Ueda wrote that it was a layperson who read aloud the resolution to cooperate with the Japanese army, because the monks tried to stay aloof from the war. Here, Ueda shows appreciation for the Burmese monks’ evasive attitude, according to which ‘religion is always prioritised’.Footnote 87
Moreover, in Nanpō Bukkyō shūgakuki, he only commented that his life of ascetic practice under strict observance of the Theravada precepts was ‘charming’ (J. fuzei no aru),Footnote 88 but in Biruma senseki junreiki, he made a much more affirmative assessment:
When you are a bhikkhu, you never squash a mosquito even if it bites you in the face. Because this means killing. You have to take it with your hand and gently sweep it away. If you are not very careful, you may violate the precept by squashing it carelessly. Even if you get lice, you do not have to crush them, but instead you take and throw them away. When you experience this for yourself, you get a different feeling from when you just think about it from the outside and understand that these practices have important meanings.Footnote 89
Life under the strict precepts, with the absolute prohibition of eating any food in the afternoon, drinking or having sex, killing creatures, even when they are fleas or lice, and touching a woman’s clothes, may seem ridiculous for those outside the temple. As absurd as they seem, they are followed rigorously. The true significance of this practice can only be known by those who have practiced it and have come in touch with the special aura that surrounds it.Footnote 90
Furthermore, in the Biruma senseki junreiki, the discussion with Sishin Sayadaw about the relation between war and the precepts, reported in the previous section, was not repeated and the following new comments were added instead:
The precept-minded Burmese monks could never be personally involved in the war, nor could they call on people to engage in warfare. During the war, when the Japanese military asked them to cooperate in the war effort, they refused to obey, insisting that they would cooperate to the extent that did not violate the precepts of the Buddha.Footnote 91
At that time, the Japanese in Burma uniformly condemned the passive and reclusive attitude of the Burmese people, which kept Burma and the other countries of Southeast Asia in the miserable and uncivilised condition they are in today. They professed that in order to make Burma a better country, Burmese Buddhism had first to be reformed. But now, after we lost the war, I cannot ridicule the Burmese’s ideas as a whole, especially in the face of the Cold War between the two sides of the world. The suspicion, hatred, struggle for interest and power, the development of atomic weapons, etc.—in all this, I can see the apocalyptic and fatal tragedy of this world.Footnote 92
Concerning the abovementioned First Aid Training School for young monks, Ueda’s attitude changed from stating that ‘the establishment of this school may become a major event in the future history of Burmese Buddhism’ to a more toned-down ‘I saw them off and secretly wished them luck for the future, hoping that it may become a milestone in the history of Burmese Buddhism.’Footnote 93
In addition, Ueda’s statement that ‘when the time comes when they have reached maturity, they, too, will abandon the lesser precepts and follow the Mahayana precepts, just as I have done’ changed into ‘Maybe it is not the time yet, but one day the masters will understand the Mahayana.’Footnote 94 Why did Ueda make these changes?
First, by the time of the publication of Biruma senseki junreiki in 1957, Ueda had returned to Burma twice, in 1954 and 1956. While there, he saw the changes that had occurred in Burmese Buddhism since his departure to Japan in 1944 and revised any wrong ‘predictions’ he had made. It is not clear in exactly what activities the monk medical orderlies were involved, but it was evident that the establishment of the First Aid Training School had not been ‘a major event’ in Burmese Buddhist history. Dorothy Guyot has shown that, already from 1942, the Japanese military had been teaching monks who were actively cooperating with the Burmese government headed by Ba Maw how to vaccinate people against cholera and smallpox. Some monks participated in the vaccination campaigns, but others vehemently objected, in particular because the vaccinations involved touching women’s bodies, which was against the precepts.Footnote 95 Moreover, since the beginning of the Japanese occupation of Burma, the Japanese propagated the commonality of Japanese and Burmese Buddhism through speeches and merit-making events at pagodas. However, the Burmese people gradually developed the perception that Japanese Buddhism was either a highly corrupted form of the Buddha’s teachings or was not Buddhism at all. One reason for this was the disrespect shown by the Japanese military for the Burmese sangha, which included attempts to assign Burmese monks various secular duties, ranging from the collecting of guns to the disposal of dead bodies. This angered the Burmese Buddhist community. They also began to think that the Japanese military’s rituals to honour the spirits of the war dead were a superstition unrelated to Buddhism. Finally, the fact that the Japanese monks could marry was beyond Burmese Buddhists’ imagination.Footnote 96 Thus, the Japanese military attempted to use Buddhism for military operations, but rather than transforming Burmese Buddhism, it ‘merely rippled the surface of the religion, as wind upon water’.Footnote 97 Similar observations have been made in many other studies that show that there is no record of monks who ‘renounced Theravada to follow Mahayana precepts’.Footnote 98 It is likely that Ueda realized this when he went back to Burma.
Why did Ueda start to positively evaluate the strict adherence to the precepts of Theravada Buddhism at this time? One reason may be, as Ueda himself stated, that the world was facing the crisis of the Cold War and the problem of nuclear weapons. The antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union, made evident by the Korean War (1950–1953), and the Daigo Fukuryū Maru incident in 1954, turned the optimism for world peace of the late 1940s into its opposite.Footnote 99 Another possible reason is that Ueda realized the tragic reality of the war when he participated in activities to recover the remains of fallen Japanese soldiers in Burma in 1956.
Ueda was president of Kōyasan University from 1947 to 1951, and in 1952, while serving as chief priest at Jōfukuin temple at Kōyasan, he promoted the construction of the Manihōtō, a stupa dedicated to the commemoration of the Japanese war dead in Burma. A Buddha statue he had brought back from Burma functioned as its main effigy.Footnote 100 In 1953, he resigned from his professorship at Kōyasan University to devote himself to the construction of the Manihōtō pagoda. Diplomatic relations between Japan and Burma had been temporarily interrupted, but in 1954, the two countries signed a peace and friendship treaty as well as a reparations agreement and resumed relations. In that same year, the Third World Buddhist Congress was held in Yangon, and Ueda attended as a Japanese representative.Footnote 101 At the time, a growing concern among the Japanese was the retrieval of the remains of the war dead in Burma. Of the approximately 300,000 Japanese soldiers who were deployed to the Burma front, about 180,000 died there, and while the remains of about 100,000 had already been repatriated at that time, the bodies of the remaining 80,000 had been left exposed to the elements during the post-war period, when diplomatic relations were interrupted.Footnote 102 When Prime Minister U Nu visited Japan in 1955, the Burma War Dead Memorial Association (J. Biruma senbotsusha ireikai) seized the opportunity and asked for permission to collect the soldiers’ remains. With U Nu’s consent, in 1956, the Japanese government organized the first remains retrieval mission in Burma, and Ueda participated in the on-site memorial services and retrieval mission as a representative of the religious community.
Ueda’s participation in the collection of remains was not an exceptional case for Japanese monks at the time. The first efforts to collect the remains of fallen soldiers by the Japanese government were carried out from 1953 to 1958 in areas that were former battlefields for the Japanese army. Representatives from the Japanese Association of Religious Organisations (J. Nihon shūkyō renmei) also participated on that occasion.Footnote 103 Ueda was selected as one of the religious representatives and participated in the collection of bodies.
According to an interview with Nakashita Zuihō, the chief priest of Jōfukuin and Ueda’s disciple, Ueda seemed to have decided to devote his life to the consolation of the spirits of the war dead after returning from 40 days of collecting remains.Footnote 104 Some of the bodies were enshrined in a temporary hall that he built using his retirement savings from Kōyasan University. When the Manihōtō pagoda was completed in 1965, the soldiers’ remains were transferred there and Ueda held daily goma offerings to commemorate the war dead. In 1968, Ueda established the Manihōtō Support Association, and every year the Veterans Association held a memorial service on the third Sunday of July. Ueda also wished to build a second pagoda (stupa) to house soldiers’ remains, but he died in 1974, before being able to complete the project. Nakashita carried out Ueda’s wishes and completed the Burma ossuary pagoda (J. Biruma nōkotsudō pagoda) near the inner sanctuary of Kōyasan in 1980. Ueda’s care for the remains of the war dead should be seen in the context of his stay at the Japanese ossuary where he lived immediately after his study in Thailand. Pagoda-shaped ossuaries are not common in Japan, but from 1958 and into the 1990s, Burmese pagoda style ossuaries or cenotaphs were erected by comrades associations (J. sen’yūkai) all over Japan to memorialize the war dead.Footnote 105 Thus, Ueda’s plan had something in common with these activities.
Nevertheless, how did the Burmese perceive Japanese efforts to retrieve the remains of their dead? Ueda affirmed that:
When it was reported that the Japanese were about to go to Burma to collect the soldiers’ remains, there were rumours that they were coming to dig up treasures buried underground during the war. It is difficult for the Burmese to understand why the Japanese would go to the trouble of collecting the remains of the dead and paying respect and homage to them. Southern Buddhism is a rationalistic religion. For them, the biggest problem is not death, but life. It is all about how to understand the true nature and meaning of this world and to be liberated (saved) from the suffering of life.
To the Burmese, human corpses, funerals, and graves are not as important as they are to us. They do not have ancestor worship as we think of it. Burmese funerals are conducted by monks, but their main work is to preach to the living attendees. After forty-nine days, the remains are no longer an issue; there are no mortuary tablets and no annual memorial services. The remains of the holy men and eminent monks who taught us the path of liberation through their own enlightenment are cherished with great reverence, and stupas are erected to worship them, but ordinary people do not receive stone monuments.
For the Burmese, worshiping the Buddha does not mean worshipping a dead person, but it means worshipping an enlightened person and following Buddha’s (the enlightened one’s) dharma. However, when I think about it, two million three hundred-thirty thousand of my fellowmen died in the Pacific War. Has there ever been an event of such magnitude in our history? […]This is why we must reflect deeply on war and death, and seek a path that will bring real peace and relief to our world.Footnote 106
The collection of the remains of the war dead continues to this day, as does the rumour that ‘[the Japanese] come to dig out treasures buried underground during the war’, which is often heard in Burma. Ueda also accurately acknowledged the difference in perception between the Japanese, who value human remains, and the Burmese, who do not worship the remains of ordinary people.
As mentioned above, Ueda came to appreciate strict adherence to the precepts of Burmese Theravada Buddhism after the war. Not only did he continue corresponding with Ven. Withokda, who helped Ueda with his research and ordination, even while diplomatic relations had not yet been restored after the war, he also renewed old friendships when he participated in the Third Buddhist World Congress in 1954, and in 1956 when he took part in the retrieval activities. Through his contacts with Burmese Buddhism, he must have understood that the significant differences between Japanese and Burmese Buddhism had not changed even after the end of the war. However, by then, Ueda no longer saw Mahayana as ‘advanced’ and ‘Hinayana’ as ‘backward’ and began to explore the possibility of bridging the two. He stated:
In broad terms, Buddhist beliefs come down to two things: erasing past transgressions and producing goodness. In the case of the erasure of past transgressions, we deal with our attachments, while producing goodness is concerned with our Buddha nature and principles.
Southern Buddhism (Hinayana Buddhism), which is practiced in Burma and Siam, examines afflictions (kleśa), disciplines them, and tries to annihilate them. These Buddhists devote their life to asceticism, never killing any living creature, never drinking a drop of alcohol, and never eating in the afternoon. It is a form of Buddhism that regards desire as the root of transgression and suffering and seeks to cut it off in order to attain freedom and peace of mind. […] However, Mahayana Buddhism in China and Japan actively seeks to see the Buddha in the human mind and to make the Buddha Dharma work in our worldly life. […] Although the erasure of past transgressions and producing goodness seem to be opposites at first glance, they are in fact the product of the same mind. Our most fundamental and precious mind is the true mind, is the Buddha’s mind. This is called bodhicitta [the enlightened mind]. When bodhicitta manifests itself as a passive attitude aimed at eliminating worldly desires, it becomes penitence and the erasure of past transgressions. When it manifests itself as an active attitude toward the good, it becomes producing goodness. Here, I believe, lies the ideological opportunity to integrate Northern and Southern Buddhism.Footnote 107
The meaning of the term ‘integrate’ (J. yūgō) used here has to be differentiated from the idea that both Japanese and Burmese were ‘Buddhists’ and that ‘Hinayana Buddhism’ in Burma needed guidance, as the Japanese military had argued during the war. Rather, Ueda had reached a point where he tried to find commonalities between these Buddhist traditions while fully acknowledging their differences. Ueda did not exalt Mahayana Buddhism at the expense of the ‘Lesser Vehicle’. But neither did he embrace Theravada Buddhism like Shaku Kōzen, who continued his ordained life even after his return from Sri Lanka, and strictly observed the precepts, criticizing the lack of them in Japanese Buddhism.
Conclusion
We do not know who the first Japanese was to be ordained as a Theravada Buddhist monk in Burma, but we know with certainty that Ueda Tenzui was ordained from 1943 to 1944. Ueda’s interest in Theravada Buddhism originated from his education in modern Buddhist studies at Tōkyō Imperial University, which stirred his interest in the Pali Vinaya Pitaka, the precepts, and the Buddha. He was thus an elite Buddhist priest living in the world of scholarship. However, what makes Ueda unique was his wish to personally experience the strict ascetic life of a Theravada monk, while at the same time remaining active in the academic world. There had already been other Japanese Buddhists who had entered Theravada monastic life before Ueda, but none of them had anything to do with the world of academia. On the contrary, researchers at academic institutions tended to place emphasis on the analysis of Buddhist texts and to disregard the importance of practitioners. The number of scholars who became ordained as Theravada Buddhist monks increased, particularly after the war, and Ueda was a trailblazer in this regard.
On the other hand, during the war, like most other Japanese monks, Ueda believed that it was more important for monks to serve the nation and society than to strictly follow the precepts. He also believed that monks should cooperate in the war effort based on the principle of ‘kill one life to save many’. Believing in this idea, he served as the headteacher of a Japanese language school, initially as a member of a pacification team and later as an affiliate of the Military Administration. After being ordained, Ueda learnt about the specific precepts from Burmese monks and started to follow them rigorously. Since Burmese monks prioritized adherence to the precepts, they refused to directly cooperate with the Japanese military in the war, with the precepts thus acting as a deterrent. Despite the efforts of Ueda and the other members of religious pacification teams, there were almost no changes to Burmese Buddhist practice. Ueda was critical of the ‘reluctant’ or ‘passive’ attitude of these Burmese monks.
In the 1950s, the outbreak of the Korean War and concerns about the possible reuse of nuclear weapons in Japan as well as his participation in the efforts to retrieve the war dead’s remains made Ueda reflect critically on the war. He changed his views about Burmese Buddhism, its strict observance of the precepts, and the prohibition on harming any life. His evaluation of Burmese Theravada Buddhism shifted from criticizing the strict adherence to the precepts as a ‘reluctant’ attitude to a wish to learn from them. Moreover, although he kept in touch with Burmese monks after the war, enshrined a Buddha statue he had brought from Burma as the main object of worship at the Manihōtō pagoda, and aimed to build a pagoda-shaped ossuary similar to the memorial ossuaries or cenotaphs built by the veterans associations, Ueda acknowledged that there would always be a big gap between them, as shown in their different views about the remains of the dead.
However, it is important to understand that although Ueda started to appreciate Burmese Theravada Buddhism, he never questioned Japanese Mahayana Buddhism. Aware of the fact that during and after the Second World War, the two branches of Buddhism maintained contact while at the same time failing to truly come to terms with each other, Ueda did not categorize them as either superior or inferior, but rather tried to find a perspective that bridged the gap between the two. This unique perspective was achieved through Ueda’s personal, hands-on experiences during and after the war. Moreover, this perspective differs from that of the Japanese military which, for operational reasons, emphasized the similarity of Japanese and Burmese based on a shared religious faith.
As mentioned in the introduction, since the 1970s, research on Japanese Buddhist participation in Japan’s wars has either criticized religious leaders who cooperated with the war effort or praised those religious leaders who were critical of it. Based on this dichotomy, Ueda is unquestionably a ‘war collaborator’. Yet, as shown in this article, Ueda’s case demonstrates the importance of an ambiguous ‘grey zone’ between these two extremes. In other words, we have to acknowledge that while Ueda acted in support of the war effort at the request of the military, he was both a scholar and a practitioner, who deepened his understanding of Theravada Buddhism through personal experience. Although Ueda criticized the war after Japan’s defeat (especially after his participation in the 1956 activities to retrieve the remains of the Japanese war dead) and also came to actively appreciate Burmese Buddhism’s strict adherence to the precepts, he never showed a critical attitude towards Japanese Buddhism. The foremost characteristic of Ueda’s thought can be said to be his ability to find commonalities between Burmese and Japanese Buddhism and not rank them according to some hierarchy of superiority, despite also recognizing the differences that exist between them. I expect further investigations into the activities and thinking of individual Japanese Buddhists who cannot be judged solely from the perspective of the cooperation–resistance paradigm to reveal more aspects of modern Japanese Buddhism that have until now been overlooked.
Competing interests
The author declares none.
