Shinto

Shinto Today

• People seek support from Shinto
• Talismans: Traffic safety, good health, success in business, safe childbirth, good exam performance.
• Weddings: Often held in Shinto style.
• Death: Source of impurity -> left to Buddhism to deal with.
• No Shinto cemeteries
• Most funerals are held in Buddhist style.

Sources

• [Wm. Theodore de Bary, et al., Sources of Japanese Tradition (SJT), Volume 1, Second Edition (New York Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 14.]
• Osborne, M. (n.d.). out of the cave and into the light. Retrieved 05 05, 2016, from lyricalworks: http://www.lyricalworks.com/stories/amaterasu/amaterasu.htm
• Stanley, B. A. (2009, 09 04). Kami. Retrieved 05 05, 2016, from BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/shinto/beliefs/kami_1.shtml

2006 Statistics:

From: The Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs

Butsudan

Kami

• 106.8 million Shinto adherents
• 91.2 million Buddhists adherents
• total population: 127.8 million people.

• "Shinto gods" are called kami.
• sacred spirits
• Wind, rain, mountains, trees, rivers and fertility.
• Humans become ancestral kami
• Kami are not perfect
• Effectively infinite number of Kami

• In Japan: religions = not exclusive.

Kojiki (bible)

Holy books of Shinto:

• Kojiki or the Records of Ancient Matters (712 CE)
• Nihon-gi or the Chronicles of Japan (720 CE).
• Compilations of ancient myths and traditional teachings
• previously passed down orally.

Shinto

Meaning:

The Way of the Gods

No Absolutes in Shinto

• Japan's major religion alongside Buddhism.
• Starting about 500 BCE
• Ethnic religion.
• Rarely practised outside Japan.

• No absolute right and wrong
• Nobody is perfect. (including gods)
• Propaganda + preaching: not common
• Deeply rooted in the Japanese people and their traditions.
• No founder
• No Bible

• Humans: fundamentally good
• Evil: caused by evil spirits.
• Purpose of (most) Shinto rituals:

keep away evil spirits by purification,

prayers and offerings to the kami.

I will talk about

• What is Shinto?
• The Shinto Gods
• Shinto and other religions
• How has it changed?
• Shinto today

In the Beginning

By Pia M

• Nothing but an endless ocean
• The God Izanagi and Goddess Izanami looked down on earth from the celestial plane
• Izanagi created the first Island Ono-goro-jima with his spear
• They went there, and created all other deities, and humans
• Izanagi had three descendants: Tsukuyomi, Susanoo and Amaterasu.

History

Shinto and Buddhism Together in Japan

The Meiji Reinterpretation of Shinto in the 19th Century

Shinto after World War II

Before the Arrival of Buddhism in Japan

• 6th century CE
• Shinto faiths + traditions took on Buddhist elements.
• Buddhism expanded significantly
• Kami were "transformations of the Buddha manifested in Japan to save all sentient beings".

• 1946: Shinto disestablished
• Emperor lost divine status
• Allied reformation of Japan.
• American Occupation Forces "undoubtedly wished to crush and destroy Shinto"

• No formal Shinto religion
• Many local cults
• First inhabitants of Japan: probably animists; devoted to the spirits of nature.
• Developed rituals & stories to make sense of their universe.
• Their "faith": Simply another part of the natural world.

• 1868: Change in the religious climate.
• Shinto and Buddhism separated
• Gods used to validate the role of the

Emperor as ruler and as high priest of Shinto.

• Shinto: official state religion
• after a while: cautiously re-incorporating elements from Buddhism.

17th century: missionaries arrive in Japan

->Christianity seen as a political threat

-> ruthlessly stamped out.

In the two centuries before the Meiji period

-> movement towards a purer form of Shinto

-> filtered out Buddhism