A History of the Development of Japanese Thought

This revised and expanded edition of a classic work traces the development of the history of philosophy in pre-modern Japan. While many historians take the view that Japanese philosophy only started with the Meiji Restoration and the entrance of Western culture into Japan, Hajime Nakamura demonstrates that there has been a long history of philosophy in Japan prior to the Meiji. Beginning in 592 AD, when Japan first became a centralized state and continuing into the early modern era, this work deals with the important problems and salient feature of Japanese philosophical thought at all stages in its development, dealing with subjects such as the philosophical ideas of the Nara and Heian periods, Japanese medieval thought, the major sects of Buddhism, the way of meditation, controversy between Buddhism and Christianity, modern trends in the Tokugawa period, religion and capitalism, Buddhist influences upon Japanese ways of thinking, and the basic features of Japanese philosophical thought.