The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1198 page)

 
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(1888–1960).
Japanese Christian evangelist and pioneer social worker. Kagawa was perhaps the greatest leader in the development of Japanese Christian social-welfare work and reform in the 20th cent. At the same time he preferred to describe himself primarily as an evangelist.
Kagawa first encountered Christian faith in the middle school at Tokushima in Shikoku. He was befriended by a Japanese Christian teacher and by two
missionaries
of the Presbyterian Church, USA. He read and reread the
New Testament
until all the pent-up agony of his past burst forth in the prayer ‘O God, make me like Christ’. From this developed a growing inner conviction that he had been given a divine commission to serve the poor.
On Christmas Day 1909, he carted his few belongings to his one room in the slums of K
be. There Kagawa committed himself to service and love of the lowliest of persons, in whom he came to be convinced that God dwells, in the whole person and circumstance. For this reason he became a
Christian Socialist
, a social seer and reformer as well as a Christian evangelist.
He helped to form the Japan Federation of Labor and to organize the labourers of K
be into a branch of this national body. He was perhaps the leading figure in the great strike of the shipyard workers in K
be in 1921. For the next forty years he was prominent in almost every movement for constructive social reform in Japan.
In his methodology Kagawa was a thorough social evolutionist, a strict follower of the principle of non-violence. Kagawa has been called one of the three greatest Christians of this century. His ideals were expounded in many books, e.g.
Love, the Law of Life
(tr. 1930) and
Christ and Japan
(Eng. tr., 1934).

 
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(Jap., originally ‘seat [or site] of the
kami
’, though now written with the Chin. ideograms for ‘sacred music’). Dramatic ritual events performed during seasonal festivals in Japan. Thematically associated with mythological exploits in the
Kojiki
and
Nihongi
, the performances represent one form of ritual entertainment which constitutes an essential element of all
matsuri
.

 
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(
bka’.brgyud
, ‘oral transmission’). One of the four principal schools of Tibetan Buddhism, taking its name from the mode of transmission of its teachings before their proper systematization by
Gampopa
(1079–1153). To it, or to some of its sub-divisions, the name ‘Red Hats’ is often incorrectly given in the W. (for the use of that name, see
RED HATS
). Like the
Nyingma
, the Kagyü have a strong identification with the Indian
siddha
tradition, out of which they recognize two lineages culminating in
Marpa
(1012–97). From N
ropa, Marpa inherited the ‘Six Doctrines of N
ropa’, Tantric practices of mastery over self and phenomena which are now recognized by all schools, and which constitute the heart of a Kagyü
lama's
training. From Maitr
pa, Marpa inherited the philosophical doctrine of Mah
mudr
, in which the progression and culmination of the spiritual path are seen as the expression of a procreative
nyat
, in which bliss, luminosity, and wisdom are seen to coincide.
From Marpa, the philosophy of Mah
mudr
and the practices of N
ropa passed to
Milarepa
, and from Milarepa to Gampopa, who had also studied in the
Kadam
tradition. It is only with Gampopa that one can begin to talk of a Kagyü ‘school’, and this immediately split into four subschools, the Tshal, Baram, Karma, and Druk. Today there are many Kagyü subschools, the two most important of which are the Druk (’brug) Kagyü, founded by Yeshe
Dorje
(1161–1211), which became the dominant tradition in Bhutan, even giving its name to that country, and the Karma Kagyü, established by Düsum Chempa (1110–93), the first Gyalwa Karmapa hierarch, and which is generally today the dominant Kagyü school.