Short description:

This book studies the history of interactions between India and Japan, especially through Buddhist pilgrimages from Japan to India and how it has influenced both Japanese and Indian Buddhism, particularly the Buddhist revival movements and the development of Buddhist sacred sites, such as Bodhgaya, in India. 

Long description:

This book examines the role of Buddhism in India?Japan relations through three approaches.

First, it studies the history of interactions between India and Japan, especially through Buddhist pilgrimages from Japan to India and how it has influenced both Japanese and Indian Buddhism, particularly the Buddhist revival movements and the development of Buddhist sacred sites, such as Bodhgaya, in India. Second, it analyses the ideological implications of these Buddhist interactions between Japan and India by focusing on the role of Japanese monks and scholars as agents of Buddhist encounters between the two countries, and their contribution towards Buddhist scholarship in Japan, and the development of ideologies such as Buddhist nationalism or Pan-Asianism in India, Japan, as well as in other Asian countries. Finally, it highlights how these historic Buddhist linkages between India and Japan have led to transnational collaborations between Buddhists/Buddhist organizations as well as the governments of the two countries, and the use of Buddhist heritage as a soft power in the diplomatic relations between India and Japan.

Drawing on inter-disciplinary studies, the essays in the volume will be of interest to scholars in history, heritage studies, religious studies, especially Buddhist studies, international relations, and Asian studies.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Narratives in Buddhist Exchanges between India and Japan. Introduction: Japanese Buddhists Encountering India and Modern Buddhist Studies. 1. Bodhisena and the Consecration of the Great Buddha: ?India? in the History of Japanese Culture 2. Longing for India: Japanese Buddhists and India 3. Following the Footsteps of Shakyamuni: Nanj? Bun?y??s Journey to India 4. A Trajectory of the Literary Work by Kimura Nichiki: Indo-Japanese Relationship in 20th Century Bengal 5. From Bongaku (??) to Indo Tetsugaku (????): Indology at Japanese Public Universities from the Meiji to the Taish? Eras 6. Shaku K?zen and Japanese Buddhists in the Revival of the Bodh Gaya Templen 7. The Bodh Gaya Restoration Movement by Anagarika Dharmapala and the Japanese Buddhists 8. ?tani Kozui and India: Seeking the Origin of the Eastward Spread of Buddhism 9. Japanese Engagement with Tibetan and Indian Buddhism: Kawaguchi Ekai 10. The Prajna Paramita Conference Revisited: Japan?India Cultural Interactions at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 11. ?Proselytizing in the ?Western Paradise?: India in the making of Fuji Nichidatsu and Nipponzan Myohoji 12. The Monks Between Japan and India: Buddhist Conversion Movements in India and the Buddhists of Japan 13. ?The Road by Which Buddhism Came?: Buddhist Diplomacy of Japan, India and China