A Study Of The Reform Of The Lamaism In East Mongolia During The Japanese Colonial Period

After Japan has invaded Manchuria and established "Manchukuo", they set up the four Xing An provinces successively. In order to include Mongolia into the "Manchukuo" and therefore be an essential part of the nation, Japan has carried out various reforming projects.Among them were innovating Buddhism-the long believed religion by Mongolians. At that time, there were many lamas and temples in the territory of "Manchukuo", which had far-reaching influence on the lives of Mongolians. The Japanese had to respect Buddhism and at the same time reform the problems existed inside the religion to gain the reliance of Mongolians, thus making the Mongolian lamas work for them. The paper studys the vital element of the innovation of buddhism-the establishment of the" Manchukuo Buddhist Communion" and the important events happened within five years after the establishment of the communion.The paper consists of the introduction, main body, conclusion, references, appendix and postscript. The main body has four chapters. In the first chapter I mainly introduced the fundamental elements of establishing "the Buddhist Communion". Furthermore, I made some research on the preparation committee, the establishing session, the regulations of the communion,the organization of the Buddhist Communion, the establishment of parnish of the communion, the parishes,five plenary sessions of the communion and the sessions of the parnishes. In the second chapter, I made research on the other reforms on the buddhism such as the study abroad of the lamas, the policy of certificates of lamas, the schools of lamas and the mediciner lamas. In the third chapter I focused on the temples and sutras at that time.In the fourth chapter I made conclusion on the Japanese policy to mobilize the lamas to cooperate in the war.The Japanese forced the lamas to donate money and coherers such as copper and iron to the army,called for them to join the army and farm work etc.The appendix consists of index of the"Blue Flag" Magazine and many pictures of that time.