Shinto is Japan's indigenous
religion; a complex of ancient folk belief and rituals; basically
animistic religion that perceives the presence of gods or of the sacred in
animals, in plants, and even in things which have no life, such as stones
and waterfalls. The roots go back to the distant past. A large number of
items discovered amongst remains dating from the Jomon period (up to 200
B.C.) are thought to have had some magical significance.
In early Japan the diverse local practices did not constitute a religious
system; there were groups of ritualists, abstainers and taboo experts,
diviners and reciters of tradition. Religion and magic centered in
fertility rites and purifications; there were local and seasonal festivals
and supernatural forces, with legends of creation and descent of the gods
to populate Japan.
Shinto would thus appear to be a Japanese form of religious practice which
enjoys close ties with people's everyday lives, and which did so in the
past too. It does not seem to have had the form of an organized or
systematized religion. Shinto has little theology and no congregational
worship. Its unifying concept is 'kami', inadequately translated
"god". It only became a systematized religion when it was faced with the
competition of the newly-imported religion, Buddhism, which reached Japan
in either 538 or 552.
The word Shinto was coined to distinguish the traditional religion from
Buddhism and is written with two Chinese characters; the first, 'shin',
is used to write the native Japanese word 'kami', meaning
"divinity" or "numinous entity", and the second 'to' is used to write the
native word 'michi', meaning "way". The term first appears in the
historical chronicle 'NIHON SHOKI' (720) where it refers to religious
observance, the divinities, and shrines, but not until the late 12th
century was it used to denote a body of religious doctrines. Since then,
for centuries, the relation between Shinto and Buddhism developed in so
various forms that merged one time with establishment of 'Ryobu
Shinto' (Two-aspect Shinto) and separated them another time with
rediscovery of 'KOJIKI' (712), 'NIHONGI' (720) and other early documents,
which revived Shinto (Fukko Shinto) and exalted the emperor as the
descendant of the Amaterasu Ohkami, the Sun Goddess, or the Great Glorious
Goddess.
The 19th century was a crucial turning point in Shinto history: on the one
hand a number of religious movements emerged to form "Kyoha Shinto",
or 'Sect Shinto', and on the other the expurgated imperial tradition of
Shinto became the state religion giving to the Meiji Restoration of 1868
the superficial appearance of a return to the Age of Gods. Shinto, thus,
divided into State Shinto, which had been defined as patriotic ritual
incumbent on all Japanese, and Sect Shinto, which had expanded enormously
as popular cults, including Tenrikyo, Konkokyo and Kurozumikyo.
Among others, Oomoto, by expanding another form of denominational
Shinto, was persecuted by the then Japanese government for its unique
activities which seemed to stand against the state.
After Japan's defeat in World War II, State Shinto was disestablished and
replaced by 'Jinja Shinto', or 'Shrine Shinto', which represents
the bulk of Shinto shrines at the regional and local levels. Tens of Sect
Shinto organizations revitalized their movements and hundreds of new
religious denominations had sprung up standing on the fundamental
teachings and practices of Shinto and Buddhism throughout the country.
To learn about Shinto you can go to the following links or perform your
own research:
http://www.shinto.org
http://www.jinja.or.jp/english/s-0.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto
