HOTOKU

semireligious movement among Japanese peasants initiated in the 19th century by Ninomiya Sontoku, who was known as the peasant sage. He combined an eclectic, nonsectarian ethic of cooperation and mutual help with practical economic measures such as crop rotation and famine relief. Hotoku (literally Repay the Indebtedness) emphasized the debt owed by man to gods, nature, ancestors, emperor, and parents. This debt could be repaid only through conformity with the cosmic order, which was equated with moral sincerity, and by economic frugality. Ninomiya Sontoku's teachings were disseminated by his followers and played an important part in shaping 19th- and 20th-century Japanese popular morality.