Christian influence on the culture of the blind in Japan

The blind in Japan have created their specific culture. As early as in the 14th century, they organized their own guild (Tōdōza) and succeeded in monopolizing a number of traditional entertainment and medical practices, having acquired a rather stable financial position. However, after the end of the Tokugawa shogunate and during the first reforms of the Meiji period, the guild was abolished together with its monopoly, and the blind found themselves in difficult circumstances, having to compete with the sighted, without practical support from the new government. In the early Meiji period, these were mostly Christian missions and private philanthropists who undertook measures to promote education of the blind and fought for their rights and welfare. Christian organizations founded first schools for the blind, such as the Tokyo School for the Blind and Dumb, which made many blind people wishing to acquire education interested in Christianity. The blind often became Christian converts and plunged into educational and philanthropical activities themselves. Major achievements in modernizing the life of the blind in Japan were made due to the work of blind Christians. Blind Christians launched the first Japanese newspaper and one of the first magazines for the blind, were the first among persons with visual impairments in Japan to get higher education, founded the first braille library and one of the first charity funds for the blind. Christianity not only contributed to the rise in living and educational standards of the blind, but also gave them possibilities to discover new ways of self-realization in acquiring new professions as well as in the sphere of spiritual development. For its followers, Christianity eradicated the concept of karma-bound blindness spread in traditional Japan and empowered them with the idea of their special mission in society entrusted to them by God. 

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