Ian Reader: "Exhibitions, Cultural Heritage, PR Campaigns and the Dynamics of 'Buddhist' Pilgrimage Promotion in Japan."

Ian Reader (Manchester)

Abstract:

In recent years pilgrimages centred on Buddhist temples, such as the Saikoku, Chichibu and Shikoku pilgrimages, appear, according to media reports, to be flourishing.  Extensive campaigns by the pilgrimage temples themselves, often using PR companies, coupled with favourable reports and representations of pilgrimage in the mass media — notably by Japan’s national broadcaster NHK, which has produced several positive documentaries and books about pilgrimages such as Shikoku — have been central to this apparent rise in popularity. Such pilgrimage promotion has also included a number of pilgrimage exhibitions at museums and department stores in Japan, sponsored by pilgrimage temple associations in conjunction with various civil authorities and commercial, transport and media concerns. Recently, too, the Shikoku temples have, in conjunction with Shikoku’s regional governments, tourist boards and business organisations, run a PR campaign to get the pilgrimage declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

In all of these campaigns and publicity, and in the contemporary representations of pilgrimages that they manifest, there is little mention of issues such ‘faith’, ‘religion’ or even Buddhism; rather, pilgrimages such as Shikoku are represented — both by civil authorities and by the pilgrimage temple organisations themselves — as manifestations of ‘cultural heritage’. In this talk, I will examine the dynamics of contemporary pilgrimage representation and promotion in Japan, and discuss why Buddhism and faith appear to be downplayed or even absent from them. I will also contextualise these issues by placing them within the wider patterns of Buddhist decline in Japan, and ask what implications this has for Buddhism in Japan in the longer term.