The Mobilization of Buddhism in Japan’s “Eight-Cornered World,” 1941-1945

From 1941 to 1945, during the Japanese wartime occupation of parts of China and Southeast Asia, the Japanese leadership attempted, through a plan based on the essentialization of Buddhism, to mobilize this religion’s adherents, so as to secure their unity and support in the ongoing war effort. This plan ostensibly sought to take advantage of one of the vagueries of “Asia.” In Japan, the rudiments of the mobilization had been inspired by a re-imagining of an originally much older, semi-religious term, hakkō ichiu (eight cords or corners of the world under one roof). The concept underlying this plan was therefore conveniently available and not entirely new. In 1941 the policy of mobilizing Buddhism was incorporated as a part of Japan’s cultural diplomacy and sought to create a “new order” in East Asia and “world peace.” This study traces the early development of the mobilization plan in Japan, the contributions of a few of those who supported it, and then traces its implementation in Vietnam, one of the areas where it was conspicuously attempted. As it will be shown, not only in its conceptualization but also in its implementation, the mobilization of Buddhism proved ultimately to be opportunistic, and, by 1943, a desperate, unworkable measure.