, also known under his pen name , was a leading Japanese intellectual and scholar of the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

. Anesaki is credited as being the father of religious studies in Japan, but also wrote on a variety of subjects including culture, literature, and politics. He was also a member of the

International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation The International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, sometimes League of Nations Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, was an advisory organization for the League of Nations which aimed to promote international exchange between scientists, r ...

of the

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...

. After studies in Philosophy at the Tokyo Imperial University, he spent three years in Europe (1900–1903). During this time he studied under Deussen, Hermann Oldenberg, Gerbe, and

Albrecht Weber Friedrich Albrecht Weber (; 17 February 1825 – 30 November 1901) was a Prussian - German Indologist and historian who studied the history of Jainism in India. Some older sources have the first and middle names interchanged. Weber was born in B ...

in Germany, as well as Thomas William Rhys Davids in England. He spent more than another year abroad in 1908–09 with partial support from Albert Kahn, the French Philanthropist. During that time he traveled extensively through Italy, tracing the steps of Saint Francis of Assisi. His travelogue ''Hanatsumi Nikki'' (Flowers of Italy) recounts that journey. He spent 1913 to 1915 as a visiting scholar at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

lecturing on Japanese literature and life. The lecture notes from this period were revised and were later the base for the book ''History of Japanese Religion''. He was also instrumental in founding the scholarly collection that became the library of the University of Tokyo. A devout

Nichiren Buddhist Nichiren Buddhism ( ja, 日蓮仏教), also known as Hokkeshū ( ja, 法華宗, meaning ''Lotus Sect'') is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese Buddhist priest Nichiren (1222–1282) and is one of ...

, he also published such titles as "How Christianity appeals to a Japanese Buddhist" (Hibbert Journal, 1905). He translated Schopenhauer's '' Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung'' into Japanese and explored terms of understanding between Buddhism and Western Philosophy.

Selected works

* Nichiren: The Buddhist Prophet, 1916. * Hanatsumi Nikki, 1909 (recently translated as Flowers of Italy, 2009) * Quelques pages d'histoire religieuse du Japon, 1921 * A Concordance to the History of Kirishitan Missions, 1930 * History of Japanese Religion. With special Reference to the social and moral Life of the Nation, 1930 * Art, Life and Nature in Japan, 1933 * Religious Life of the Japanese People. Its present Status and historical Background, 1938 * Waga Shogai (My Life), 1951

References

Sources

* Kitagawa, Joseph M. (1964), ''Review of History of Japanese Religion by Masaharu Anesaki'' The Journal of Religion 44 (3), pp. 273–274. * Ishibashi, Tomonobu (1943)
Masaharu Anesaki. Ein kurzes Lebensbild
Monumenta Nipponica 6 (1/2), i-x * Isomae, Jun'ichi; Jacobowitz, Seth (2002), The Discursive Position of Religious Studies in Japan: Masaharu Anesaki and the Origins of Religious Studies. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 14 (1), 21-46 * Bloom, Alfred (May, 1964)
Review: History of Japanese Religion; with Special Reference to the Social and Moral Life of the Nation
The Journal of Asian Studies 23 (3), 476

External links

International Dictionary of Intellectual HistoriansMasaharu Anesaki: A Life Chronology
Japanese academics Japanese writers Japanese non-fiction writers English-language writers from Japan 1873 births 1949 deaths Officiers of the Légion d'honneur University of Tokyo alumni Nichiren Buddhists Japanese Buddhists Japanese scholars of Buddhism League of Nations people {{Japan-academic-bio-stub