Conclusion

Abstract

We have seen that there was an apocalyptic tradition in premodern Japan, but that it was less influential than the Western apocalyptic tradition. In Japan, the cyclical idea of time, which was introduced by Buddhism, dominated because transience became the central ideology in premodern Japan. Early Japanese apocalyptic thought often included binary oppositions such as heaven and hell, virtue and vice, the eternal and the temporary, and there was no confrontation between them. Otherness was described as something distant and unreachable, such as another world or the Pure Land.

I am still a child, and sometimes, my right hand kills people.

In turn, someone’s right hand will kill me.

Until then, without being bored, I need to continue to live as a child.¹

—Mori Hiroshi, The Sky Crawlers