Abstract

Definitions of the nature of Confucian piety and the religious dimension of the Japanese Confucian tradition are sought. The general religious dimension of Confucianism is defined both by the nature of its canon, the Thirteen Classics, and its transcendent referent, the root metaphor of ultimate concern. The Japanese Confucians inherited this pan-East Asian philosophic and religious tradition and modified it to suit their own cultural and religious sensibilities. If we recognize, as Herbert Fingarette has shown, that for Confucians the secular is truly the sacred, then it is easy to distinguish the religious dimension of the Confucian Way in a distinctive Japanese guise