Section 3 : Civilization and Values Concerning the Perspectives of Death and Life

Program Promoter

From birth to death, most life activities of human beings are rarely represented as the "natural" course of life; rather, they are expressed as a part of a cultural activity in which some kind of value is transferred. The life and death for those who live from day to day are nothing but conceptions of life and death as values processed through a cultural filter. Similarly to life that begins as a seed containing its own life and death, a human being's experience of life and death is formed in accordance with accepted values. Similar to the lives of different species, which establish relationships of pray, parasitism, symbiosis, forces of conflict, coexistence, severance, and integration operate among differing values. And analogous to life that sustains and explores itself through the existing dynamism between different species, human beings also construct values of these foundational issues about life and death through historical conflicts and negotiations of different values. The perspective of death and life, therefore, is nothing but a study of these ultimate values for the further understanding of the meanings of death and life particular to human beings.

Conventionally, ethical and value-related issues regarding life have been studied in the field of bio-ethics that originated primarily in the United States. However, these researches undertaken in the field of bio-ethics which attempt to shed light on contemporary topics are unfamiliar with theoretical and philosophical studies on the one hand, and lack an acute sensitivity to various cultural values regarding life on the other. As a result, studies regarding values of death and life are without historical perspective in regard to both of these aspects. We will study how differing values of death and life originated, continued, changed, co-existed, conflicted, were integrated into, and separated in each civilization. Our attempt to illuminate this issue comprehensively through the histories of mankind aims to shed light on topics of death and life for human beings as a whole, and provide appropriate context for bio-ethics that attempts to focus on contemporary issues.

From this standpoint, in Section Three of this project, we plan to construct a framework that approaches religious foundations and differing values in each civilization through combining aspects of both religious doctrine and real life situations, which have been conventionally analyzed separately. Further, we hope to establish a network that will allow us to communicate with researchers in various parts of the world across disciplinary boundaries. The following four aspects comprise the pillars of our section:

1. We will divide each civilization into cultural units of regions or religions, and invite representative scholars for lectures, seminars, joint researches and symposiums.
2. We will study historical changes in accord with religious texts, interpretations, and actual rituals of Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism, Judaism, Islam, and other folk religions.
3. We will conduct research trips and tours to understand the oral traditions and actualities of regional societies. Through these activities, we will formulate a clinical religious approach for cooperation between religions and for establishing dialogues among varying religions.
4. We will pursue studies on the history of the construction of a distinct perspective on death and life in Japan.

These activities will be carried out through the active participation of young researchers and graduate students in Religious Studies, Studies of Buddhism and Philosophy in India and Japanese Literature, thereby creating an arena to foster young researchers. We hope to complete the overall studies in time for World Conference of Religious Studies and Histories of Religions (tentatively planned in March, 2005), and use our research findings as a foundation to further our network of communication with scholars and research institutions of religions worldwide, and to further develop and explore the Death and Life Studies.

SHIMODA Masahiro