Ryō dai sen-kan no Nihon ni okeru eibun shuppan-mono ni utsuru Suzuki fusai no kiyo

This paper focuses on D T Suzuki’s contributions to the two English language Buddhist journals published in Japan in the interwar period, the Eastern Buddhist (founded 1921) and The Young East (founded 1925). It situates his writings and his life mission of promoting Western understanding of Mahayana Buddhism within the intersecting historical contexts of the increased Western interest in Buddhism that followed the devastation of the First World War, and concurrent movements among Japanese Buddhist internationalists to promote Eastern Buddhism as the basis of world peace. This was the time of Japan’s membership of the League of Nations, and these Buddhists, the founders of the Young East among them, participated in the ‘Geneva attitude’ of active global citizenship. The paper consequently inserts the two Buddhist journals into current scholarship on the role of the Anglophone press as medium for increasing understanding of Japan and Japanese influence abroad at this time. Western interest in Buddhism, the Japanese promotion of Mahayana as the foundation of world peace, and the use of the Anglophone press for cross cultural communication would coalesce in the formation of the Kokusai Bukkyō Kyōkai (International Buddhist Society, IBS) in 1934 and its revival of the Young East as its mouthpiece. The IBS had much in common with the Kokusai Bunka Shinkōkai (Society for International Cultural Relations, KBS) formed by the Japanese Government slightly later as part of its program of maintaining Japan’s position of world influence following its withdrawal from the League of Nations. Its mission was to foster international co-operation and goodwill in this fragile period by increasing Western understanding of Japan and its culture. The KBS interests encompassed Buddhism, sponsoring Suzuki’s lectures, overseas travel and publications. The IBS was more specifically focussed, and by reviving the Young East journal, it linked into an already well-established readership, a transnational network of Buddhists and Buddhist sympathizers established in the previous decade. Within 3 years it had 93 separate branches across 41 countries and its list of representatives contained an impressive number of people of influence. D T Suzuki and his wife Beatrice were IBS counsellors from the time of its inauguration, the international face of Japanese Buddhism. This acknowledged their prolific and influential earlier work and provided a platform for its continuation. Beatrice was a regular contributor. The proposed paper embeds D T Suzuki’s work in the historical contexts that facilitated and shaped its dissemination and reception.