50 Prolegomena to a Living Discourse on Buddhism Best Seller In February 1887 Enryō published Prolegomena to a Living Discourse on Buddhism. As its title implies this book aimed at revitalizing Buddhism. At the beginning of the Meiji era, Buddhism had been a de facto national religion but due to the Meiji Restoration its position changed drastically. The policy of the new Meiji government was to build a nation centered on the emperor. Shinto, which was also related to the emperor, was to be the main religion. Thus, the world moved in the direction of excluding Buddhism and pushing Shinto to the center. When the Meiji Restoration took place Enryō was ten years old. In today’s school system he would be in the upper grade of elemen-tary school. In the midst of the movement to abolish Buddhism that was sweeping through society at that time, Enryō, who came from a temple background, must have been forced to consider the fate of Buddhism. At one point he gave up on Buddhism, but after studying Western philosophy at the University of Tokyo and discovering what he understood as the truth, which has permeated East and West since ancient times, he took a second look at Buddhism. There he discov-ered that the truths he found in Western philosophy were also actu-ally also there inside Buddhism. It was his Prolegomena to a Living Dis-course on Buddhism that inspired the Buddhist world at a time when it was suffering from stagnation. The book consists of three parts. In the first part, “The State and Truth,” he explains that as a scholar, the two ideas of protecting and developing the state and loving truth are compatible. It is Enryō’s philosophical stance that “protecting nation and loving truth” is one
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