SHINTOISM

[prasanna]

Shinto history


A Shinto gateway or torii

The traditional belief system of Japan has no fundamental creeds or written teachings, and is not particularly evangelical. However it resonates with a veneration for Japanese tradition and the invisible presence of innumerable spiritual powers, or kami. Thus the spiritual insights attributed to Japan’s ancient inhabitants are regarded as just as valid now as throughout all the vicissitudes of history. Shinto is essentially a body of ritual to relate with kami in a way that is respectful, warm, open, positive and vibrant. Local festivals (matsuri) have become so much part of social life and enshrine so much traditional Japanese morality and social behaviour that participation seems natural common-sense, good neighbourliness and part of being Japanese. Shinto has thus become a vehicle for many themes, and need not operate merely on the basis of conscious ‘belief’.

THE NAME

‘Shinto’ combines the Chinese characters for kami, the way, (implying the way to/from and of the kami.) It was originally chosen by government in the seventh century to distinguish ‘traditional’ worship from Buddhism. Shinto, however, is clearly not simply an indigenous native cult but reflects much of the ancient shamanic traditions common to its Asian neighbours. Historians can also pinpoint how Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian and, more recently, Christian philosophy and customs have been adopted because of the attractions and challenges of Chinese, Korean and Western civilization. At times Shinto has also been used by the Japanese State to unify the nation under the Emperor, as a national religion, against foreign enemies.

This background of political and academic debate has usually been alien to most Japanese people, who have always spoken simply of ‘the kami’, (never ‘Shinto’) and practise a mixture of Buddhism and Shinto without any sense of contradiction. Furthermore, few Japanese would refer to either Buddhism or Shinto as ‘religion’, or shukyou, which is usually equated with pushy evangelism and quibbling over dogma.

THE KAMI

Japan’s earliest histories, the Kojiki and Nihonshoki, were compiled on the orders of the imperial family in AD 712 and AD 720 respectively, for the purpose of justifying the royal lineage, and describe many of the most important kami. Although there was an obvious political aim to unite all the regional and clan deities under the authority of the imperial, Yamato, clan-deity Amaterasu Omikami, the kami of the sun, these legends provide an explanation for most Shinto rituals and the starting point for any official, Shinto ‘theology’.

Some basic concepts that emerge are:


A shrine at Ise, the holiest site of Shintoism.
1. Kami are not necessarily the same as ‘gods’. They can die, and decompose like mortals. Some are human. There is no easy divide between what is animate and inanimate, cultural and natural, human and divine. Rather, all creation is an expression of spiritual powers. All things are bound together in a kind of spiritual family, and it is natural therefore to try and relate with the world emotionally, as well and materially and scientifically. Spiritual power is not spread equally, but can be recognised as especially powerful in particular phenomena and these are the kami.


Beginnings of Shintoism


A sacred woodland, marked by a red Torii gateway, overlooked by Mount Fuji

Way of the gods
Shinto means ‘Way of the Gods’. It is the traditional and ancient religion of Japan, without a founder or sacred scriptures, which regards all natural things as having their own spirituality. Traditional Shinto was not organized into a religion. It reveres kami, the indigenous folk deities of Japan – spirits present in animals, plants, and even stones and waterfalls.
Formal beginnings
Shinto became a distinct religion in response to the arrival of Buddhism in Japan around 550 AD. But not until the late 12th century was the word Shinto used to define a distinct body of religious teachings. Since then Shinto and Buddhism have co-existed in Japan, sometimes closer, sometimes further apart.
State Shinto
The 19th century was a turning point. In 1868 Shinto was divided into State Shinto, obligatory for all Japanese, and Shrine Shinto, which included an enormous number of popular cults, a few of which were persecuted by the then Japanese government.
Popular movements
After Japan's defeat in World War II, State Shinto was disestablished and replaced by Jinja Shinto, or Shrine Shinto, which now represents the majority of Shinto shrines. Tens of Shrine Shinto organizations revitalized their movements and hundreds of new religious denominations sprung up from the fundamental teachings and practices of Shinto and Buddhism