The Shinto religion was started in the Tokugawa period
(1600-1868) of Japanese history. The Tokugawa Enlightenment
inspired a group of people who studied kokugaku, which roughly
translated means nativism, Japanese Studies, or Native
Studies. Kokugakus intent was to recover Japanese character
to what it was before the early influences of foreigners, especially
the Chinese. Some of these influences include Confucianism
(Chinese), Taoism (Chinese), Buddhism (Indian and Chinese), and
Christianity (Western European). The kokugakushu (nativist)
focused most of their efforts on recovering the Shinto religion, the
native Japanese religion, from fragments of texts and popular
religious practices.
However, Shintoism is probably not a native religion of
Japan (since the Japanese were not the original natives of
Japan). There really is no one thing that can be called Shinto,
The name itself is a bit misleading because it is made up of two
Chinese words meaning the way of the gods(Shen : spiritual
power, divinity; Tao : the way or path). The word for this in
Japanese is kannagara : "the way of the kami ."
Many things can be said about Shinto. First, it was a tribal
religion, not a state one. However, even when the tribes were
organized into coherent states, they still retained their Shinto
beliefs. Second, all Shinto cults believe in Kami (the divine)
Individual clans worshipped a single Kami which was regarded as
the principal ancestor of the clan. As the clan spread, it still
worshipped its Kami, but when one clan conquered another
clan-the defeated clan had to worship the Kami of the victorious
clan. What the Kami consist of is hard to define. Kami refers to
the gods of Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld. But Kami also
are all those things that have divinity in them to some degree.
Third, all Shinto involve some sort of shrine worship, the most
important was the Izumo Shrine on the coast of the Japan Sea.
Originally, these shrines were himorogi (unpolluted land
surrounded by trees) or iwasaka (unpolluted land surrounded by
stones). Shinto shrines are usually single rooms raised off the
ground, with religious objects placed inside, and on the outside
there was a torii (wash-basin). The torii was used for the misorgi,
which is washing the hands and sometimes the face before
entering the shrine. Someone worships a shrine by attending it,
or devoting oneself to the object that is being worshipped, and by
giving offerings to it: the offerings can be anything from
vegetables to great riches.
Almost nothing at all is known about early Shinto because
nothing was written about it. Early Shinto may just be a name
given to a large number of unrelated local religions that combined
with the the centralized states. The two texts of Shintoism, the
Kojiki (The records of Ancient matters) and the Nihongi
(Chronicles of Japan), were written down around 700 A.D., two
centuries after Japan had declared Buddhism the state religion.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, the Japanese government
campaigned to make Shinto the national religion. However many
people were unhappy with Shintoism. During that time
Christianity arrived in Japan. Between 1868 and 1873
Christianity was severely attacked as the government shut out
foreigners and their ideas. Many active Christians were killed. In
1912 the Japanese got religious freedom.
In 1990 the number of followers for religions in Japan are
:Shintoists -112,200,000, Buddhists - 93,400,000, Christians -
1,422,000, and others - 11,412,000. Therefore, about 120 million
people adhere to 2 or more religions at the same time.
Works Cited
Shinto http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/Shinto.html. Online. 5
June 1995.
Hishida, Miki. Religions in Japan. 15 Dec 1995. Online posting:
http://naio1.kcc.hawaii.edu/miki/JReligions.html. Internet.
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