Part 10: The Great Promulgation Campaign

This is part 10 of my series on Shinto as a civil religion, you can find the rest of the series here.

The Great Promulgation Campaign was an attempt by the Japanese government to start a state religion. The campaign lasted from 1870 to 1875 when it was handed over to the Ise Shrine. Before this hand-off, the campaign wasn’t directly associated with Shinto. Instead, it tried to spread “The Great Teaching” through both Shinto and Buddhism. This spread through seminars, where Shinto priests and Buddhist monks were taught how to preach “The Great Teaching”. They were also taught how to perform rituals with the same goal. Despite the campaign not being directly tied to Shinto, the rituals mainly incorporated Shinto symbolism and execution. For example, mirrors were worshipped, and the liturgy was the same as the Shrines. Besides this the institute where the seminars took place housed a shrine dedicated to Amaterasu. This also meant that Buddhist monks who took part in the seminars had to wear Shinto garbs and use Shinto liturgy.

“The Great Teaching” consisted of three points: Respect the gods and love your country, preparation of the principles of “Heaven” and “The Way of Man”, honor and respect the emperor and obey the law. Yet, the vagaries of these points were not something the people were used to and so “The Great Teaching” had to be explained through further writings. Even the monks and priests who had been through an entire seminar on the subject needed the extra texts. The explanations amounted to sending your kids to school, supporting the military, paying your taxes, and changing to the sun calendar. The campaign was essentially about modernizing the people of Japan.

The campaign quickly became known for its internal issues. Factions arose based on where the priests were from, their familial connections, religious factions, and so on. The result was that the campaign participants were out of control. Several of the campaign teachers preached as they had always done, dressed in Buddhist garb and using Buddhist liturgy. The state expressed its discontent with this, by firing people from the campaign 1871. Later, when things didn´t change, the government lowered the pay of priests working for lower-ranked shrines.

In 1873 opposition towards the campaign arose in Eichizen. The local instructors had been dressed in Western clothes and had promoted the Gregorian calendar. The locals had been convinced that the campaign was promoting Christianity. At the same time, the instructors had been trying to stop the Buddhist monks’ Dharma preaching. After the violent period Buddhism had just been through, the people of Eichizen worried that this was an attempt to completely end Buddhism. The tension resulted in a rebellion. Three and four thousand men walked through the main street of Ono and burned the campaign office down. They also destroyed anything perceived as Western in origin. The destruction spread to the surrounding areas and for around three weeks more than ten thousand people were involved. The rebellion ended when five of its leaders were executed by hanging. Shortly afterward in 1975 Buddhism withdrew their participation in the campaign.

In 1876 the campaign got a new leader, the head priest of the Ise shrine. The campaign then quickly began to reflect only Shinto values. But, this didn’t end all the internal squabbling. Soon conflicts about which kami to include in Shinto’s pantheon sprung up. These internal struggles would last until the government stopped the campaign in 1884.

The campaign was the first attempt by the Japanese government to create a civil religion. With this campaign, the civil religion has become top-down, because of the state’s involvement. We still see the remains of the kokugaku bottom-up civil religion in the teachings of respecting the kami, honoring the emperor, and the “Heavenly principles”. Despite the campaign’s rather tumultuous existence, it still managed to cement Shinto as a religion in its own right. Shinto was now free from Buddhism both physically and in the eyes of the people.

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