Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

In premodern Japan, religion, particularly Buddhism, played a major role in shaping normative views of old age. On the one hand, religious discourse and practices contributed to the marginalization of the elderly. Didactic texts, for instance, used the aged body as a symbol of the miseries of samsara, in hopes of leading the faithful to an appreciation of impermanence. On the other hand, in the medieval period, the aged body came to be used as a symbol of otherworldly power, with Buddhist legends portraying local gods or avatars of Buddhas or bodhisattvas appearing as mysterious, enigmatic old men (okina). This paper discusses some of the processes by which received notions about old age were subverted and overturned in the medieval period, and how this created new possibilities for the ways in which old age could be performed or adopted as an identity. I conclude my exploration by briefly considering the situation in contemporary Japan, and asking how religious institutions are responding to the challenges facing Japan’s elderly, and contributing to public discourse on what it means to grow old.