Ancestor Worship (Research Paper Sample)

Ancestor Worship
Name:
Class/Course Name:
Professor (Tutor):
School (University):
Location:
Date:
Ancestor worship is the respectful devotion conveyed by descendants for their deceased descendants through a culturally agreed set of rituals and observances. The center of ancestor worship is the conviction in the ongoing existence of the dead and in a close relation between the living and the dead, who carry on to influence the affairs of the living. There are beliefs in a surviving element of the human person and afterlife been held in all kinds of societies. The fame of ancestors as an emphasis of worship within a wider religious tradition is common in many parts of the world, including Africa, Asia and Native America. However, there are few uniting features cross-culturally. Japanese have ancestor worship practices that they adopted from Chinese customs (Smith 1974, pp. 6). Most Japanese revert to ancestor worship in times of crisis perhaps as a means of staying in touch with the roots of their socio-cultural identity as a people. One of the reasons for this may be that ancestor worship has not been peculiar to a particular organized religion.
As time passed, and with the coexistence of the Shinto religion, Japanese Buddhism started to highlight death rites and honoring ceremonies. Despite Confucianism not wholly developed in Japan, partially religious Confucian ideals became crucial and were incorporated in the Japanese Buddhists sects' teaching sometimes hence respect for the ancestors. Japanese rites have elaborate funerals and many commemorative rites at home, gravesites and in the temples (Rowe 2003, pp. 110). They have Butsudan (memorial tablets) that displays tablets inscribed ancestors' names. Bon, an annual ancestral ceremony takes place in July or August. During the ceremony, family members go back to their homes to honor all spirits of the dead believed to have returned to their homes at that time. They make offerings of fresh fruit, flowers, and cooked rice on the family altar (kamidana), and family members go to encounter the souls of their ancestors in the cemetery or at the temple (Traphagan 2003, pp. 132).
In many areas, they hold an annual Bon dance to rejoice the special observance in which adults and children party to Japanese folk music. They remember ancestors and worship through the purification rituals, which take place seven days, forty-nine days, and one hundred days after the death of a family member. They also do it during the first Bon, and the first, third, seventh, thirteenth, seventeenth, twenty-third, twenty-seventh, thirty-third, fiftieth, and one hundredth year anniversaries of their death. The deceased watch over the life of their descendants and it is the main concept of Japanese ancestral worship.
The phenomenon of ancestor worship being unique in Japan is that it is lacking an organized religious structure and has become a central part of the moral, cultural and social strength of the people over centuries, which explains why these rituals have survived. Even atheists have no doubts about worshipping their ancestors. From this, it appears that ancestor worship is essentially a significant aspect of the Japanese cultural identity rather than a religious phenomenon. Theories about the ancestral worship in Japan came up. Hall argued that Japanese ancestor worship is essentially a Chinese import. He affirms that it was manifested in Teijo's veneration for the ancestors and that the exercise slowly spread through the upper classes. He also argues that it is likely to be of Chinese origin because there is little evidence that Japanese people practiced ancestor worship in the early centuries of their history as a people.
Aston appears to agree, and he argues that primitive Shinto had no cult of ancestor worship. Hearn believes that ancestor worship is indigenous to Japan and an intrinsic part of Shinto. According to Hearn, the Japanese consider the family cult the first in evolutional order and thus the real religion of Japan is ancestor worship. Strong followers of this view were evident in the Shinto revivalists of the Kokugaku School in the 18th and 19th times. Revlon's theory appears to be borne out by modern Japanology and Japanese folklore. He points out that after the significant influence of Chinese culture in the seventh century, ancestor worship in Japan appeared to be Buddhist in nature and, therefore, conceptualized in Buddhist terms. The fact that Buddhist ancestor worship spread rapidly and adopted universally made it the perfect vehicle for basic elements in indigenous Japanese thought.
Modernization and urbanization have brought about significant changes in the Japanese community. In a 1968 survey of religious attitudes of the Japanese, Basabe found that only one in four Japanese still believed that spirits of the ancestors go back to their homes during Bon festival. They do not consider themselves believers in any religion. Statistics of butsudan and kamidana ownership is declining since the 1960s to date. Higher rates of ownership are in the rural areas while lower rates were seen in cities. Japanese Buddhism tends to be customary basing its norms on the community and families (Klass, Silverman and Nickman 1996, pp 102) . The Christian religion puts more emphasis on religious conviction, and this has resulted to many Japanese shifting to Christianity as their religion.
Japanese Christians are founding many churches despite having a low population of Christians in Japan. Some of the prominent people in Japan are Christian intellectuals, writers, and even political activists. This positively influences the other people in the nation to change their traditional beliefs into Christianity. Converts from the traditional beliefs overcome the resistance of their families and communities to enable them build organizations and assist them systematize their teachings. The upcoming religious movements hold frequent group meetings for worship, spiritual counseling, community service and converting people to their religion. Bigger teams create special groups for art or music that reduces them from dwelling into their past practices.
As a result, families who live in cities no longer directly subject to the ancestral worship system passed from one generation to the next. Hendry says that it is usual for an elderly parent to move in with a son or daughter in modern Japan (HEARN 2012, pp. 270). The concept of the hereditary home and structures of authority is undermined. He affirms that the post-war era and the age of industrialization and urbanization have changed the Japanese family structure significantly. Because of urbanization, people have left their traditional ancestral homes for the cities. They have cut off their ties with the traditional temple (OHNUKI 1984, pp. 124). Modern Japanese live as smaller nuclear family units. In many cases, connection with the family temple has become almost non-existent. Urban priests are not effective in locating and reaching out to newcomers.
The difference in the post-war period to that of the traditional in the pre-war era is a definite move to smaller nuclear family units. The New Civil Code drafted during the Allied occupation of Japan played an important part in this development. According to this policy, traditional norms were abolished as a legal unit and were to be replaced by a nuclear family. There was registration of a new nuclear family at marriage. All the children have the same rights to heirloom and are to share the obligation of taking care of their parents. Laws drafted according to the Constitution of 1947 state, "concerning choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters about marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes" (Article 24).
It was an essential departure from the traditional system and thus the residues of the traditional system would not disappear instantly. The notion of traditional system is still very much alive in Japanese cosmology in spite of urbanization and modernization. One of the main reasons for the perseverance of the beliefs of the traditional system in spite of it been abolished by law lies in the values that it promulgated. According to anthropologist, Takami Kuwayama, the ideas and philosophy of ...