This book attempts to identify the role and institutional infiltration of Buddhism across Asia as a whole. The author addresses the many new broader regulations governing the practice of Buddhism established by the Tokugawa regime during the 17th and early 18th centuries, which remained in place until the 19th century. The Shogunate issued a decree in 1770 providing the Tokugawa administration with full control over all monks and ceremonial services of the schools of Buddhism including temple regulations, temple certification, the temple affiliation system, and monastic status, while performing a rigid analysis of the major-affiliate temple hierarchy, clearly demonstrating how Tokugawa wanted to keep a close eye on Japan’s Buddhists. This
