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The first treaty between Japan and the United States, concluded in March 1854, signified the formal end of more than two centuries of almost total seclusion, during which Christianity had been proscribed as the "evil religion" (jashu) the West. The first limited treaties were gradually expanded, and a number of ports were opened for foreign trade and residence. Extraterritorial privileges were granted, and customs duties were fixed at moderate rates. The implications of the opening of Japan can hardly be overestimated. It coincided with and to a great extent contributed to the final collapse of the Tokugawa regime and the subsequent restoration of Imperial rule in 1868. The last years of the Tokugawa period (1600-1867) were characterized by the conflict between the advocates of open intercourse with the West and those who wanted to return to seclusion and expel the foreigners. The conflict continued in the Meiji period (1868-1912) as a tension between the main trend to adopt Western ideas and institutions and the opposite trend to maintain or reaffirm national traditions.

For the Buddhists it was particularly important that contact with the West inevitably implied contact with Christianity. The Western powers identified themselves more or less as "Christian countries" and supported the cause of Christianity. The first Christian missionaries arrived in 1859. Their avowed purpose was to serve the Western residents in the treaty ports, but they were also aiming at missionary work among the Japanese population.

Even though Japan opened its ports and the Western powers gradually expanded their rights to trade and settlement in the treaty ports, Christianity was still a proscribed religion. The Japanese government emphasized that the opening of the country did not imply any change in its anti-Christian policy. Anti-Christian and anti-foreign sentiment actually increased in the years after 1854. The enemies of the Tokugawa regime stimulated the exclusionist sentiment expressed in the cry sonno joi, "Revere the Emperor! Expel the Barbarians!" The politics of expulsion finally failed in the last years of the Tokugawa period, and anti-Christian sentiment subsided somewhat. After the Restoration in 1868, however, the oppression of Christianity was intensified. The notice boards proscribing Christianity were again posted all over the country, and thousands of underground Christians were rounded up, persecuted, arrested, and exiled to distant provinces. In 1873 the boards wee finally removed. The government maintained that Christianity was still proscribed, but the decision was accompanied by so many other changes that the public quite appropriately understood the removal of the boards as a tacit recognition of Christianity. This recognition gradually initiated a new era of Buddhist-Christian relations, as we shall see later. In short, the initial period of contact, from 1854 to 1873, was characterized by these somewhat contradictory facts: Japan was opened for contact with the rest of the world, including Christianity; missionary work was started in the open ports; but Christianity was still proscribed as an evil religion.

The contact between Buddhism and Christianity was not only a religious encounter; it was part of a major cultural and political confrontation. In the broad context of political changes, the interactions between Buddhism and Christianity had only limited significance and did not, apart from some diplomatic complications, exercise any decisive influence upon the course of history. Hence many studies of the period after the opening of Japan pay only slight attention to Buddhist-Christian relations. On the other hand, it is impossible to understand the relationship between the two religious without considering their respective roles in the historic drama. . .

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