Japanese Buddhist Astral Sciences (Bonreki) of the 18th and 19th Centuries

The introduction and popularization of European science in seventeenth-century Japan presented significant challenges to the worldview of Japanese Buddhists. Japanese monks refuting European scientific theories about the physical nature of the cosmos turned to ancient Indian models to argue for Japan’s place in a Buddhist universe. Throughout the eighteenth and ninteenth century, new kinds of cosmological diagrams, scientific illustrations, and technical instruments were constructed to demonstrate the operations of a Buddhist universe. This presentation will analyze the arguments, images, models, and mechanisms produced by the Japanese Buddhists who attempted to prove the superiority of traditional Buddhist thought over European science until the end of the nineteenth century.