Sourcebook in Shinto: Selected Documents by Stuart Picken (Resources in Asian Philosophy and Religion) Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004 Hardback 399 pages. $165.00.
Ian Reader, author and academic, said of Stuart Picken’s Essentials of Shinto that it was the worst book on religion he had ever come across. There were times in reading through Picken’s Sourcebook in Shinto when I knew exactly what he meant, for this most valuable resource of primary documents is accompanied by a commentary that exasperates as much as it illuminates. It’s a great shame, for Picken has rendered English speakers a tremendous service by delivering such a vital collection of writings through the ages.
The first quirk of the book is the bizarre ordering of the material, to which there appears little rhyme or reason. The chapter on State Shinto, for instance, comes before that on Nativism which led up to it. This goes along with some surprising selection decisions. Despite the comprehensiveness, there’s no section on Yasukuni which has been a key issue for Shinto in the postwar period. Picken argues that it has been covered elsewhere, though his one-sided partiality elsewhere suggests rather he is loathe to include something so controversial.
Annoyingly the primary texts are not allowed to speak for themselves, but are constantly cast in the light of the editor’s prejudices and preferences. Some are otiose, such as when he claims one of his own books as a landmark in foreign writings about Shinto, while denigrating the work of a rival as that of an amateur. And the book is marked throughout by a view of Shinto that is best described as traditional – a uniquely Japanese religion that has existed since time immemorial. In their recent book on Shinto, Breen and Teeuwen identify the beginning of the religion with the fifteenth-century Yoshida Shinto; for Picken, by contrast, it was ‘rehabilitating the indigenous cult and restoring the prominence it had once enjoyed in ancient times.’ Contemporary scholarship would find that problematic, to say the least.
But it is the political slant of Picken’s commentary that proves the most irksome, for he acts as apologist for Japan with the kind of arguments that typify right-wing nationalism. There is not a single mention of Japan’s victims in WW2 yet he dwells on the dignified role of the nation as victims of the atom bomb. He excuses the emperor as powerless to affect the war (which is a falsehood), and he makes an astonishing attack on Helen Hardacre by claiming that her well-received book ‘leans towards a conspiracy theory whereby somehow or other, a scenario may exist in the minds of some Japanese to establish State Shinto’. Later however Picken scores a spectacular own goal by himself writing of ‘the tendency in certain government circles to appear to favour the restoration of State Shinto’.
Worst of all, Picken goes so far as to defend Japan’s reluctance to apologise for war crimes in WW2 by claiming ‘Wrongs cannot be righted by apologies or by endless harping back to past sufferings’. Only the most callous of people could argue that way, and it’s a most extraordinarily un-Christian attitude for someone who is a Scottish pastor.
In the end Picken’s commentary proves an unfortunate distraction from the wealth of valuable material. Much of it is unavailable elsewhere in English, and for those interested an outline of the contents follows below. It’s certainly worth having these writings to hand, though the expense will probably rule it out for most. (You can find it as a google book here.) Those looking for primary documents might consider the more affordable Sources in Japanese Tradition, whose scholarly commentary is a model of objectivity and restraint. It has a generous Shinto selection too, and for those interested in a more manageable alternative to Picken’s substantial collection a review can be found here.
Contents
1 Mythology and Classic Literature
2 Early Historical and Liturgical Documents P. 49
3 State Shinto and the Post-1945 Situation P. 87
4 The Imperial Household and Shinto P. 123
5 Sect Shinto and the New Religions P. 143
6 Shinto Thought to the Meiji Restoration P. 163
7 Early Modern Western Views of Shinto P. 227
8 Early Modern Japanese Views of Shinto p.247
9 Contemporary Western Discussions of Shinto P. 269
10 Contemporary Japanese Expositions of Shinto P. 315
List of Imperial Incumbents P. 349
The Misog Ritual P. 355
The Association of District First Shrines Ichinomiya Kai P. 365
Selected Bibliography P. 379
Index P. 395
I am plowing through this volume and his “historical dictionary of shinto” and must say they should both be avoided :)
Interesting comments. I’ve just finished Picken’s “Sourcebook in Shinto” and didn’t see the political slant as strongly as it is described here. It was clear to me that there was some, and that in many places the author was stating his opinion when introducing the texts he included.
I will say that I really valued the introduction sections to the documents. I don’t know if I had enough background in the material to let them stand on their own. Without some kind of framework to understand what was happening that led to these writings, I don’t think I could have made as much sense out of the documents themselves.
I am now suspicious, however, of those same introductions, and wondering what I’ve assumed was facts was somewhat slanted.
While I did find the ordering of the documents to be somewhat odd – wouldn’t simple chronological order have made more sense? – I did value the chance to read some of the older documents which I hadn’t seen elsewhere at all. It gave me some understanding of history and perspective that I was lacking.
In the whole three hundred and some pages, I only found a few really excellent passages that I wanted to save – I scanned a total of 19 pages out of which I’ll collect the things I found really memorable. Even with that, I’m glad I read it and have seen some more of the background information that led Shinto to where it is today.
I am glad it was a library book, though, as I would have been extremely unhappy if I’d have paid full price for it, especially considering the parts I felt most valuable were certainly out of copyright by now.
I’ll have to see if I can find the other book you suggest!
I haven’t seen Picken’s Sourcebook, but I wrote a review of his Essentials of Shinto for Japanese Religions, published by the NCC Center for the Study of Japanese Religions vol. 22:2 (July, 1997). It’s an unfortunate work that should never have seen the light of day in its present condition. I saw Picken’s Historical Dictionary of Shinto when it came out and noted that it relies directly on Essentials in numerous places, so the errors are compounded. Unless Sourcebook is meant to correct the errors in Essentials, I would avoid them all.