Have you ever noticed that many of those with Japanese ancestry in Hawaii trace their roots to Kyushu and southern Honshu? Ask your friends, and you’ll find that many of their ancestors came from Kumamoto, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka and other southwestern cities. Why that came to be is an interesting story.
In 1887 an unsuccessful rebellion against Emperor Meiji was launched on Kyushu island in Japan. The Satsuma Rebellion marked the end of the samurai class in Japan, which resisted the emperor’s modernization efforts. The 2003 movie "The Last Samurai," starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe, told the tragic story of the rebellion.
In the aftermath of the Satsuma Rebellion, Kyushu and even nearby areas of southern Honshu, such as Hiroshima and Yamaguchi, were economically depressed. Many there jumped at the chance to work in Hawaii.
King Kalakaua first raised the issue of Japanese immigration to Hawaii when he met with Emperor Meiji six years earlier in 1881. Hawaii’s population had fallen and sugar planters needed labor. The first large wave of immigrants arrived in February 1885.
The Rev. Soryu Kagahi, a young Shin Buddhist priest from Kyushu, was saddened to think the workers had no priest to lead them or perform reassuring Buddhist rituals. He decided to leave for the faraway kingdom in 1889.
His first service was held March 3 of that year in the Kojima Hotel on Beretania Street. A gong and deep rhythmic chanting in Japanese began the service. That sound resonated across the island chain, and its echo can be heard today, 124 years later. The Hawaii Mission of Honpa Hongwanji had begun. Within five months a Hilo mission was also started.
At that time, Buddhism was not well known, understood or welcomed in the kingdom. How did Buddhism become better known and regarded in Hawaii? Sometimes it takes an outsider to bridge the cultural gap. In the case of Buddhism in Hawaii, that person was Mary Foster of Foster Botanical Garden fame.
Foster became a devout Buddhist after the death of her husband, Thomas, in 1889. While burdened with grief, she met Anagarika Dharmapala, a Buddhist man visiting from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). They spent a great deal of time talking, and her grief passed.
Dharmapala donated a bodhi tree to Foster Botanical Garden with an extraordinary lineage. It was a cutting from a bodhi tree in Ceylon that was planted in 288 B.C. That tree was propagated, it was said, from the Indian bodhi tree that Buddha sat under until he became enlightened. "Buddha" means "enlightened one."
Foster became a benefactor to the Maha Bodhi Society in Ceylon. Schools, hospitals, temples, monasteries and many other organizations were founded with her support. She is revered in Sri Lanka to this day.
Foster helped the local hongwanji financially and encouraged her good friend, the former Queen Liliuokalani, to attend a service at the new temple on Fort and Kukui streets in 1901. Her attendance was noted by newspapers all over the world and did much to enhance the image of Buddhism in the islands.
A decade later the hongwanji had outgrown its space, and Foster donated money and land adjacent to her home for construction of a new temple and high school near Fort (now Pali Highway) and School streets. In 1918 the new temple, combining Japanese and Indian Buddhist architecture, was dedicated.
Hongwanji ministers traveled extensively to plantations to help immigrant workers there. They conducted services, counseled the downhearted, arranged marriages, arbitrated disputes, helped with letter-writing and assisted with problems in the community or with plantation management.
Siddhartha Gautama founded Buddhism in India 2,400 years ago. Shinran Shonin established Shin Buddhism in Japan in the 13th century A.D. The sect is different from Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan, and other Buddhist sects such as Jodoshu, Sotoshu and Nichiren.
Shin Buddhism offered another path to enlightenment from traditional Buddhism. The original path required one to forsake contemporary living and lead a contemplative life, often as a monk in a monastery.
Shin Buddhism offered a path the average person could follow without leaving his or her family and livelihood. "Shin" means heart or core of Buddhism.
The Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii celebrated the 750th memorial anniversary of Shinran Shonin in 2009, as well as the 120th anniversary of its founding in Hawaii.
Today there are 33 temples in the islands and a Buddhist high school, the Pacific Buddhist Academy.
They spread Buddha’s message of nonviolence, self-reflection and peaceful cooperation.
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Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
