Kamei Koremi

• Born: 1824
• Died: 1885

Kamei Koremi was lord of Tsuwano han and, following the Meiji Restoration, became vice-minister (jikan) of the Office of Rites. Along with Under-secretary of Rites Fukuba Bisei, he was among the chief officials responsible for the shinbutsu bunri ("separation of Shinto and Buddhism") policies.

Kamei was an adherent of the Hirata school of kokugaku (Nativism), and explicitly referred to Buddhism as a "heretical law" (jahô) from which the Japanese people needed to be freed, so they could return to "the worship and reverence of [Shinto] shrines by all people below heaven, [and] the preservation of the doctrine of our Imperial nation."

References

• James Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan, Princeton University Press (1991), 8.