岸野久 KISHINO Hisashi

From "Dainichi" to Deus – The Early Christian Missionaries' Discovery and Understanding of Buddhism

It is common knowledge that Francis Xavier, who visited Japan in August 1549, first addressed the Christian God Deus as "Dainichi" (abbreviation of the founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, Dainichi Nyorai), and during the majority of his stay in Japan preached of "Dainichi." Then after having realized that "Dainichi" was not Deus (God), replaced his teaching of God with Deus (phonetically pronounced "Deusu"). In existing research, the addressing of God as "Dainichi" (Deus = "Dainichi") is regarded as Xavier's greatest mistake, and it is held that the ignorance of Japanese religion by the Japanese Anjiro who provided Xavier with information on Japan was the cause of this, after which there has been no further argument beyond these points until this day. However, the problem of Deus = "Dainichi," is an interesting contemporary theme, as one may well speak of its pros and cons, responsibility, and so on and so forth, but the contact between Christianity and Buddhism, two of the world's great religions, and the understanding of foreign cultures are also interesting points worth considering.

By having met with the Japanese Anjiro in Malacca in 1547, Xavier got interested in Japan and before long decided on Japan's propagation. How to portray the Christian God Deus in Japan would likely have had Xavier racking his brains the most during the stage of preparation. After carefully examining the information on Japanese religion that was offered from Anjiro, Xavier found out common characteristics between God and "Dainichi," who, like the sun, was unique and had an absolute nature, and as such, Xavier decided to address Deus as "Dainichi." However, when Xavier was translating Christian doctrine for propagation in India, he used Portuguese without translating into the local Tamil dialect major doctrinal terminology beginning with Deus. This tended to avoid confusion between Christianity and the local religion of Hinduism. Therefore, it can be said that the adoption of "Dainichi" was an exceptional thing.

Why was it that Xavier addressed God as "Dainichi" and used "Dainichi"? It is necessary to consider how this was caused to be connected with Xavier's future plans, which should be referred to as his "design for the propagation of East Asia," which included Japan and China. Before coming to Japan, Xavier already had the intention of going to China, considered staying in Japan for a little over two years, and, as his concrete goals of operation, was to go and investigate (1) Japan's religious situation, (2) whether or not the propagation of Christianity happened in Japan in the past, (3) and the possibility and future prospects of the propagation of Christianity in Japan. Moreover, Xavier made showing his juniors the objective from here on out, as pioneers in the propagation of Japan, was a task of the greatest magnitude. In order to draw a tentative conclusion on this subject at more than two years, as far as using Deus from the original language, communicating with the Japanese takes time, and since the beginning of the missionaries' arrival in Japan, there was a danger of not being able to operate. For that reason, it is thought that although there was some degree of confusion and danger done in preparation, making use of "Dainichi" as a familiar concept to the Japanese, with "Dainichi" as a keyword, attempted to elucidate Japan's religious situation.

Xavier preached of "Dainichi" for a period of two years from August 1549 until August 1551. As a result, Christianity was regarded as a school of Buddhism through an "Indian sect" and about 200 believers of "Dainichi" were born. Although this was a minus from the standpoint of this kind of propagation, Xavier, the missionaries, and Christianity, without receiving great resistance in Japanese society, were accepted relatively smoothly, and received an audience in Kagoshima with the feudal lord Takahisa Shimazu, and in Yamaguchi with the feudal lord Yoshitaka Ōuchi; and by their relationship with them, were able to make contact with leaders in the Buddhist world.

In Yamaguchi, at one point when there was a dialogue with a priest of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, the missionaries noticed a difference between Deus and "Dainichi," and furthermore discovered that "Dainichi" had a special language for expressing female genitalia, and thus immediately stopped the use of "Dainichi," switching to "Deus" in its original language (henceforth in Japan original language became used for major doctrinal terminology). Taking advantage of this opportunity, full-blown religious debates between missionaries and Buddhist monks were commenced, and Xavier and his fellows began to open the door on the Buddhist world.

After that, although Dainichi disappeared from the field of propagation, in the field of Buddhist studies at the beginning of the 1560s, scholastic materia prima (matter) was laid down, and the missionaries' understanding of Buddhism contributed greatly as a major key in the analysis of Buddhism.

William FARGE, S.J.

The Japanese Translations of the Jesuit Mission Press

The story of the Jesuit mission press of Japan began in India in 1575 when the first Provincial Congregation of the Society of Jesus (19-28 December, in Chorão, Goa) gave official sanction for the production of "religious literature in the native languages."1 Everard Mercurian, general superior of the Jesuits, expressed his support for the creation of a Japanese devotional literature in his responses to the congregation's proposals. He cautioned, however, that care was to be exercised and any books published would have to be sent to Rome for examination. Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606), as official visitor representing the superior general of the Society throughout the sphere of Portuguese influence in Asia from 1574 to 1606, had the authority to determine mission policy concerning the creation of native Catholic literature. He recommended that the Jesuit missionaries should place greater emphasis on the study of the Japanese language and adapt themselves to Japanese customs and etiquette.2 Francisco Cabral (1529-1609), the mission superior in Japan from 1570 to 1581, opposed this policy fearing it would have a detrimental effect on Jesuit life. As a result, the Jesuits of the mission press struggled to determine just how far they could or should go in altering the language of Catholic spirituality and doctrine in order to accommodate Christian beliefs to the Japanese.

The translation of European books into religious treatises suitable for the Japanese began in earnest in 1590, as soon as Valignano arrived in Japan with the printing press. Three works stand out as being of particularly high literary quality. There were two translations of the spiritual work attributed to Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), De Imitatione Christi (On the imitation of Christ, 1441). A virtually complete translation was published in roman letters at Amakusa in 1596 under the title Contemptvs mundi jenbu (Contempt of the world, complete). Fourteen years later, in 1610, an abridged translation, Kontemutsusu munji, was printed in Japanese syllabary characters (hiragana) in Kyoto by the Catholic layman Antonio Harada. A translation of Luis de Granada's (1504-1588) manual of devotion, Guía de Pecadores (The sinner's guide, 1567) was prepared for publication at Nagasaki in 1599-1600 and printed under the Japanese transliterated title Giya do pekadoru. These three works demonstrated a mastery of Japanese literary style and translation technique as well as the Jesuit mission's desire to adapt Catholic spirituality to Japanese culture.

A close reading of these translations reveals that there was a struggle between Jesuits who wanted to put limits on literary adaptation and those who favored Valignano's more open policy of inculturation. Though the translators did use some Buddhist terminology, much of the religious vocabulary in the texts consisted of transliterated Spanish or Portuguese words. In spite of the official resolve to build up a Japanese Catholic Church and to adapt to the indigenous culture, the translations done by the Jesuits give evidence that the search for suitable religious language was surrounded by controversy.

A major obstacle to communicating the Christian message in Japan through literary translation was the particular type of culturally-biased language in which De Imitatione Christi and Guía de Pecadores had originally been written. It was a religious idiom that, for the most part, was alien to Japan. The translators' challenge was much more complicated than simply finding language equivalents for Latin and Spanish words and then rewriting them in intelligible Japanese. The Jesuits had to first select those parts of the original works that would resonate with the native culture and then highlight or develop them by making culturally appropriate changes or additions.

The translators noted, for example, that the Latin phrase "contemptus mundi" did not simply mean "contempt for the world." The term refered rather to the decrepitude of the world3 or, in the words of Lotario di Segni (1198-1216) who later became Pope Innocent III, "the misery of the human condition." The Japanese translators adapted this concept to that of ukiyo (the transitory world), a sentiment that has been significant throughout the history of Japanese literature and culture. From the Heian period (794-1185), this word had been used to describe the world as a place of sorrow and grief. It expressed a Buddhist view of reality in which human existence is under the control of complex chains of causation. Throughout Muromachi times (1336-1573) the word ukiyo continued to allude to an unsettled feeling of instability in life. The Jesuit mission press identified contemptus mundi with the Japanese native understanding of ukiyo. This is only one example of the many linguistic adaptations that allowed the press to produce a literature of high quality that was based on a solid understanding of Japanese cultural sensibilities.

The Jesuit mission press was intent not only on cultural adaptation but also on preserving orthodoxy and communicating the authentic teachings of the Church. Translators had to find a way to bring the teachings of Christ to a people who had no European cultural or philosophical foundation for understanding Catholicism, and they had to do it in a language that had no specifically Christian religious vocabulary. The theological assumptions of sixteenth-century European Catholicism, its attitudes concerning religious language and dogmatic meaning, and the missionary necessity of presenting an orthodox Christian message to a non-European culture were all problems that ultimately were successfully tackled by the Jesuits of the Japanese mission press.

Contemptvs mundi jenbu, Kontemutsusu munji, and Giya do pekadoru, have been called the best pieces of any religious literature in Japan, either Christian or non-Christian.4 This paper will examine thoroughly, through examples, the methods of translation and editing used by the mission press in its attempt to produce a native Christian literature as directed by the Jesuit Provincial Congregation of 1575. From this examination a more accurate picture of exactly what cultural adaptation meant for the Jesuit missionaries at the turn of the seventeenth century will emerge.

1. Josef Franz Schütte,SJ, Valignano's Mission Principles For Japan, Part I, trans. John J. Coyne (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1980), p. 250.

2. Ibid., p. 340

3. Jean Delumeau, Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture, 13th-18th Centuries, trans. Eric Nicholson (New York: St Martin's Press, 1990), p. 10.

4. Anesaki Masaharu, ed., Kirishitan shükyô bungaku (Tokyo: Kokusho Kankôkai, 1976), pp. 9-10.

淺見雅一 ASAMI Masakazu

Regarding the Solution That Antonio Rubino, Visitor to Japan and China, Gave on the Rites Controversy

Antonio Rubino, the Visitor to Japan and China, and Diego Morales, in 1641, were writing a paper in Manila about the Chinese rites controversy. It is thought that they tried to present a solution to the rites controversy before voyaging to Japan, after having prepared themselves for martyrdom. It is believed that this paper was something that, while in Manila, Morales put together in Portuguese based upon Rubino's point of view. In this paper Chinese beliefs have been explained in a generalized manner; and concerning Confucius, though described as China's greatest philosopher, it is not supposed that the Chinese regard him as a god or a prophet. The Jesuits interpret Confucius' Mausoleum to be anything from an auditorium to a residence, and though it is a place that praises Confucius, it is considered that Confucius is not necessarily deified. In this way, paying respect to Confucius as a scholar does not become a problem. In Confucius' Mausoleum, essentially, with regard to practicing such acts as offering up impermissible animal sacrifices to anything other than God, as the offering of sacrifices is something that can be misunderstood even by church writers, it was assumed that this would not become a problem. The same logic was also applied toward Chinese ancestor worship.

Regarding the rites controversy, it became necessary to deal with the situation in which Christian officials are forced to worship at Chenghuang Temple in the capacity of Chinese government officials. As an example, in the event of being inaugurated to an official government position, one was required to worship at the temple. Also praying for rain when there was a draught, regardless of whether one was active duty or retired, was considered one's duty as a government official. Although Yang Yanjun of Hangzhou, had already left his official post, it was still required that he worship at Chenghuang Temple to pray for rain. On these occasions, the vice provincial of China, Francisco Furtado, who received counsel from him, advised applying to one's superior officer to remain at home without going to Chenghuang Temple, but if that was not possible, he encouraged making a confession after worship and receiving Holy Communion. Afterwards, in regard to situations like this, things like building an independent chapel within Chenghuang Temple, and putting up a framed picture praising the Christian God, came to be adopted as ways to avoid the act of corresponding doing worship at Chenghuang Temple with idol worship.

The dispute/controversy over the question of conscience in Japan is referred to as an important argument in this paper. Excerpts can be seen from the collection of examples on the conscience issue in Japan that was drawn up in Goa by Francisco Rodrigues in 1570. It turns out that Rodrigues' argument maintained its efficacy in Japan after that, extending over a prolonged period of time. It can also be confirmed that in 1592, Alessandro Valignano, the Visitor to the East Indies, when conferring with Europe on the conscience problem in Japan, consulted Rodrigues' case history on the matter. It can be confirmed that Pedro Gomez, the vice provincial of Japan, also was consulting Rodrigues' argument concerning idol worship in Japan. Because Gabriel Vasquez's response to Valignano's inquiry is often cited in Rubino's paper, it recognizes that an example of idol worship in Japan can be considered to be applicable to the rites controversy in China.

According to this paper, after Vasquez's response received the recognition of Athol, Vasquez de Padilla, and Angelis, it came to be recognized in a coordinated inquisition meeting held in Alcalá on April 4, 1602. In 1602, by order of Pope Clement VIII, Alcalá University underwent an inquisition and Vasquez, too, at this time, received suspicion from papal criticism, and his response, although already officially recognized immediately following its writing in 1595, was restricted. After that, because Vasquez' name was cleared and he was acquitted, his opinion will probably be considered able to be approved. At the point in time when this paper was written, Vasquez' response had been maintaining its efficacy in Japan as well as China. Consequently, it turns out that the Chinese rites controversy as a conscience problem has devised a resolution through Rubino's application of the problem of idol worship in Japan.

張先清 ZHANG Xianqing

Migration, Trade and Religion: the Social Networks of Catholic Communities in South Fujian in the Late Ming Period

In the Ming Dynasty the South Fujian Zhang Spring area, because it "has mountains carried on the sea as its pillow," such that "the East connects to Japan, the West joins with Siam, a sphere, and to the South are the Franks (ie. Portuguese, Spanish, etc.), Pahang (Malaysia) and various countries," possessed the convenience of superior overseas transportation, and after the 16th century, had frequent contact with Western influences like Portugal, Spain, and other nations that came East. Under this backdrop, Catholic missionaries also frequently entered this region for activities, such as disseminating religious doctrine and "converting people as if they were at the market," causing this area to gradually develop into the center of Catholicism in South China during the Ming Dynasty.

The development of Catholicism in South Fujian at the end of the Ming Dynasty possessed different characteristics from inland China and other areas. Among them, this region's unique characteristics such as its overseas immigrants and merchant network played an important role in the process of the spread of Catholicism being promoted in that area. About the time the Spanish occupied the Philippines, the people from South Fujian's Zhang Spring had already migrated to Manila in groups, with "merchants reaching tens of thousands in number, often residing for a long time not to return, and thus creating a long line of descendants." As a result of the missionaries carrying out a pro-active missionary strategy in the Philippines, the people that lived together there from the Zhang Spring area also became the primary object of missionary work, and a considerable number of people from South Fujian accepted Catholicism, receiving baptism and becoming believers, and forming in that locality a Catholic community of South Fujian immigrants.

Catholic missionaries, through converting these South Fujian immigrants, not only learned the Southern Fujian dialect and Chinese writing, but moreover made full use of the South China Sea merchant network that was formed by the South Fujian traders, actively developing in a positive direction towards missionary activities in the South Fujian region. With the help of the South Fujian merchant believers, the Catholic community frequently dispatched missionaries, sailing aboard the South Fujian merchant ships that came there to do missionary work. It can be said that the Manila–Zhang Spring shipping route, as one of the busy merchant lines at the end of the Ming Dynasty, was also, in the meantime, an important Catholic import route.

Precisely by relying on immigration and the merchant network, Catholicism in South Fujian at the end of the Ming dynasty obtained fairly rapid development, had multitudes of believers, an educational administration that also flourished considerably, and places such as the hillside behind Zhangzhou, Gangwei, Quanzhou Jinjiang, and An Hai all of which were, at that time, major Catholic missionary areas. More importantly, South Fujian also gradually became the primary stopover station for Western missionaries entering South China and other areas, in particular the Catholic Dominicans and Franciscans, all of whom regarded the South Fujian area as a springboard for expanding missionary work along the Chinese coast, and thus caused the South Fujian area to become another gateway for Catholicism to enter China at the end of the Ming Dynasty opposite Macau.

What should be pointed out is that South Fujian Catholicism's unique characteristic of having an overseas network, while providing various kinds of conveniences for doing missionary work for local Catholicism, also proposed many challenges for the development of the church. Because there were numerous traders who went out to sea from the Zhang Spring area during the Ming Dynasty, they came to live for a long time in South Fujian and the regions of Southeast Asia, where they engaged in trade activities, and were influenced by what they saw and heard of Western power and influence in the colonization activities of places in Southeast Asia. There they witnessed criminal acts of many early Western colonizers that violated the carrying out of colonial policy, and from this emerged a repugnance and apprehension against Westerners that included the Catholic missionaries, and through which were derived many bizarre rumors about Catholicism, these rumors having been passed on through direct oral communication to the South Fujian merchants, and which frequently became a public opinion tool at the end of the Ming Dynasty in the South Fujian area that gave rise to the rejecting of the Catholic case, and brought a disadvantageous influence against the development of Catholicism in South Fujian.

In brief, through putting in order and carefully combing through historical documents of China and the West, we not only can trace the process of the early South Fujian people's conversion to Catholicism, and examine their being able to pass through Southeast Asian waters unhindered, but also the stories of ordinary South Fujian Catholic Christians that were almost cast into historical oblivion. This will advance both of these topics together and explore the development of South Fujian Catholicism, and moreover will undoubtedly deepen regard related to social networks, such as immigrant and trade networks, in the understanding of the important role they played throughout the growth process of promoting Catholic communities in South China at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

若桑みどり WAKAKUWA Midori

The Development and Transfiguration of the Iconic Image of the Virgin Mary in Japan – The Relationship Between Chinese Buddhist Images and Maria Kannon

When Francis Xavier landed in Satsuma in 1549, he brought with him an image of the Virgin Mary. As for Xavier, the image of the Virgin Mary was revered by the mother of the lord of the Satsuma clan, and was able to request that the same thing be drawn. Thereafter, until the ban in 1614, numerous images of the Virgin Mary were given rise to and were produced by Japanese art schools. Through records it is known that images of the Virgin Mary, even more than images of Christ's crucifixion, were much preferred by the Japanese, and while there was also a language barrier, images of the Virgin Mary were considered to have a big impact on the establishment of Japanese churches.

The image of the Virgin Mary in Japan changed through the course of the following three stages: (1) images of the Virgin Mary brought through the influx of goods from Western Europe, (2) pictures of the Virgin Mary drawn by Japanese artists who modeled themselves after the Western European teacher Nicolau or Western painting, and (3) images of the Virgin Mary that were disguised during the periods of persecution and of hiding underground.

Disguised images of the Virgin Mary were either made in Japan, and were drawings on paper of a female image that resembled the Buddhist Kannon (the goddess of mercy), as a so-called closet god. Otherwise there were also Chinese-made "Zi'an Guanyin / Koyasu Kannon (the goddess of mercy for the safe delivery of children)" that were imported through Chinese merchants, ceramics that were similar in nature, or Buddhist images made of metal, all of which were revered as the Virgin Mary. This was the so-called "Maria Kannon."

The Kannon (Avalokitesvara) that originated in India was originally a male. How was it that this Kannon became not only female, but maternal? The present writer sees in there the fusion of maternal deity worship found in Chinese folk beliefs and Buddhism. Through the fusing together of maternal deities and Kannon, the earthly beneficial Buddhist images of guarding over mother and child and protecting childbirth were established. "Koyasu Kannon," a general term established in China, could be seen being purchased in large quantities from traders by Japanese Christians seeking images of the Virgin Mary and Child. The Chinese-made images remaining all over the place prove this fact.

My hypothesis on the process by which "Koyasu Kannon" was formed, is that there likely were iconic images that had been produced to be used as the Madonna and Child through Chinese Christians already in China. Matteo Ricci reports that the Chinese preferred images of the Virgin Mary without liking pictures of Jesus' crucifixion. Although there is no evidence according to records, I want to prove this theory by taking up on examples among the Koyasu Kannon that resembled icons of the Virgin Mary in particular.

In conclusion, "the worship of female deities," which remains at the grassroots levels in East Asia such as China and Japan, managed to bring about the feminization of a Kannon that was male, and was revered as Zi'an Guanyin (Koyasu Kannon) in China, and as Maria Kannon in Japan. In previous research, Maria Kannon came to be evaluated too insignificantly as a mere "substitute" during the period of persecution, but this author sees this as the most original form of fusion of Asian folk customs and culture and Christian beliefs in the hearts and minds of the people.

卜正民 Timothy BROOK

Europaeology: Assembling Knowledge of Europe in Late-Ming China

The scholarly field of sinology emerged in the seventeenth-century Europe to order the new knowledge reaching Europeans from the other side of the globe. While China had loomed large in the European imagination since at least the time of Marco Polo, only with the regular contact between China and Europe beginning in that century could a discipline of knowledge come into being. A similar process of knowledge formation was occurring in China at the same time, though in a very different context. Chinese called it xixue 西學or taixi zhi xue 泰西之學 ("Western learning"). We usually think of Western learning as the study of the new scientific knowledge Europeans were bringing to China, not as the study of Europe, yet it was both. The Chinese who took up Western learning for its scientific ideas were in fact also developing a body of knowledge about the West. But that "West" is too generic, based purely on the self-identification of the Jesuit missionaries as having come from the "West." In fact, they were from Europe, and their knowledge was peculiarly European in its forms and content, which is why xixue might more accurately by translated as sinology's counterpart, as europaeology. To speak of sinology without europaeology threatens to treat China as something "local" that has to be studied and the West as something "universal" that has content without context. This paper is a first sketch of the emergence of europaeology in the first two decades of the seventeenth century, based on a reading of Matteo Ricci's Chinese writings for what they reveal about Europe, and Xu Guangqi's writings for what they show of how knowledge in China was received.

João Paulo OLIVEIRA E COSTA

The Japanese Students in the College of Macao (1594-1606)

By the end of the 16th century, Macao was the centre of Portuguese activity in the China Sea, and it was the sole place East off Malacca where the missionaries of the Portuguese Patronage could organise a kind of Western daily life, despite most of the Portuguese there were actually luso-asiatic people.

The founding of the College of Macao by Alessandro Valignano was a decision concerning all his missionary strategy for East Asia, but it was also a direct answer to the evolution of the Japanese mission from his first visit (1579-1582) to the second (1590-1592).

The growing of baptisms and the admission of a large number of Japanese as Jesuits, as well as the beginning of the hostility of Japanese central power against Christianity, stressed the urgent need of an institution where some of those Japanese clerics could make their preparation for becoming priests. Due to the political situation in Japan and to the controversies about the admission of native clergy, Valignano realised that such an institution had to be created out of the archipelago.

During his second stay in Japan, the visitor admitted the possibility of sending 10 Japanese brothers to Rome, in order to finish there their training. However he realised soon that such idea was not very practical and Macao became the natural solution, which could be used also for the training of the future Chinese missionaries. Such a college could be also the ideal place for the last studies of the European Jesuits who would be later sent to China or to Japan. Therefore, Macao emerged as the appropriated place for the training of all the Jesuits who would be involved in the conversion of East Asia – an Asiatic city where East Asian and European civilisations were interacting.

During about a decade, the College of Macao was the main training centre for the Jesuits who would work in Japan, and a few Japanese brothers made there a significant part of their studies. However, after Valignano's death the Japanese disappear from the College lists. Francesco Pasio, the vice-provincial of Japan was an opponent of Valignano's policy concerning the College, and changed the system of preparation of Japanese brothers, as soon as he received news about Valignano's death.

In the following years, bishop Cerqueira ordained several Japanese priests, but most of them (including all the diocesan priests) had made their preparation in Japan. Later, the retreat of most of the Jesuits to Macao and Manila, in 1614, was not profited to start again the preparation of Japanese Jesuits in Macao.

In my paper I shall present an analysis of the Japanese who studied in Macao from 1594 to 1606 trying to integrate that specific group of Jesuits in Valignano's apostolic policy.