SHINTO
“The way of the Gods”
After this chapter, readers will be able to do the following:
• Understand the historical development of Shinto
• Distinguish how the Japanese stress practice more than belief in their understanding of religion
• Identify and interpret core Shinto concepts, such as kami and the immanence of the Gods in all things
“The great imperial land, Japan, is the august country where the divine ancestral goddess Amaterasu Omikami
was born, a superb country…According to her divine pleasure, this land was decreed to be the country of the
imperial descendants… so that even now, without deviation from the divine age, the land might continue in
tranquility and in accord with the will of the kami, a country ruled in peace.”
—Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801)
“Natural Religion is the spontaneous awareness of the Divine that can be found in any culture…The Spirit of
Great Nature may be a flower, may be the beauty of the mountains, the pure snow, the soft rains or the gentle
breeze. Kannagara means being in communion with these forms of beauty and so with the highest level of
experiences of life. When people respond to the silent and provocative beauty of the natural order, they are
aware of Kannagara. When they respond in life in a similar way, by following ways ‘according the kami,’ they
are expressing kannagara in their lives. They are living according to the natural flow of the universe and will
benefit and develop by so doing.”
—Yukitaka Yamamoto (1987)
Last but not least in our examination of Asian religions is what we discover when moving across the Yellow and
East China Sea to the Far East. Here, we come to an island country with an indigenous religion where there is no
founder, no codified text, no essential ritual, no rigid dogma, and no active proselytizing.
If this sounds like what we discovered in Hinduism, it should. The parallels are striking. This is the Land of the Rising
Sun (or Nihon, literally, “the source of the sun” as is depicted on their national flag), commonly referred to as
Japan in the West.
Japan is an island country isolated from the rest of the world where there exists a language like no other. In fact,
linguists are not certain of its origin or relationship to any of the other languages of the world. The Japanese
people developed a unique language, culture, and way of life whose origins largely remain a mystery to
anthropologists. This is the context out of which the mythos of the Japanese indigenous religion of Shinto
originated, giving its people their continued sense of unique history and place in the world.
Shinto literally means “the way of the Gods”—gods being plural beyond count. What is certain is that their
presence is in all things, everywhere, especially permeating the entirety of nature. How so? Consider the fact that
Japan lies along the Pacific Rim and the Ring of Fire fault line, which has colliding tectonic plates that result in daily
earthquakes, active
volcanoes, boiling springs pouring out of the mountains, torrential rains, and
the devastation of typhoons and tsunamis. To the adherents of Shinto, nature is rife with the presence of the
supernatural. It is best to pay attention to its presence and make sure one does not upset the balance of man and
nature.
Oldest religion in Japan
It should be noted that Shinto predates any other religious system that resides in Japan, and thus escapes the need
for definition or differentiation until the advent of Buddhism in China during the 6th century C.E., and later
Christianity from the West in the 16th century C.E. As an aside, Daoism and Confucianism were never seen as
competitors to Shinto, but rather complimentary systems of thought and action. Scholars of religion have argued
that, whereas Buddhism found its proper place in the Japanese religious landscape as the preferred means for
preparing for the afterlife and caring for the dead, Christianity never found a niche for itself and thus remained on
the outside. This is somewhat attenuated by the current inclination among Japanese young people to get married
in a Christian church.
Sacred narrative
While other religions do exist in Japan, Shinto is ultimately what gives the Japanese their unique identity. The
mythology, understood as “sacred narrative,” discusses how the Japanese came into existence and is told in the
Shinto texts, the Kojiki and Nihongi. In short, these texts tell the story of how Japan and the Japanese people were
created by the gods, Izanami and Izanagi, as they stood over the bridge of heaven overlooking the waters below.
Izanagi dipped his sword into the waters of the Pacific and the droplets that fell formed the archipelago of the
Japanese islands. Tap on the image below to read more information about the Shoku Nihongi:
THERE SHOULD BE PICTURE IN HERE!!!
“The Shoku Nihongi is an imperially commissioned Japanese history text. Completed in 797, it is
the second of the Six National Histories, coming directly after Nihon Shoki and followed by
Nihon Koki. The work covers the 95-year period from the beginning of Emperor Kanmu’s reign in
791, spanning nine imperial reigns. It was completed in 797 A.D.,” (Bender, 2009).
Through Izanagi’s and Izanami’s conjugal relations, the various tribes and clans of the Japanese were formed from
their offspring. One of the gods that came into being as a result of their sexual union was Amaterasu—the sun
goddess. She, in particular, became the patroness of the Japanese. Her descendant, Jimmu, became the first
emperor of Japan, which has resulted in an unbroken line of divine emperors, regarded as gods, that persists to
this day. The implications of this sacred mythology are abundantly clear: The Japanese islands are of divine
creation, as are its people a divine race, and most importantly, the emperor himself is considered a god—a direct
descendant of Amaterasu in an unbroken line of divinity.
The importance of this mythology ebbed and flowed at various times throughout Japanese history, but as one
might suspect, it was extremely important as recent as World War II when it was used by those in political power
to show that it was the divine destiny of the Japanese to colonize and rule over the rest of Asia. Part of the
acceptability of this myth by the Japanese was the very real fact that its islands had never been conquered by a
foreign power. Even when Kublai Khan’s Mongols tried to invade Japan in the 13th century C.E. with a massive
flotilla, a typhoon— or as the Japanese called it, kamikaze (“wind of the Gods”)—blew them back in a failed
attempt. The same narrative was used during WWII by the Japanese military to embolden their air force while
sending their pilots on suicide bombing missions against the allied navy over the Pacific Ocean, calling them
“kamikaze pilots.” Ultimately, the approach failed.
Not until the mid-20th century C.E. with the Japanese defeat at the end of WWII at the hands of the allied forces,
did the nation first experience the occupation of their land by foreign powers. Obviously, this left the Japanese
severely shaken, questioning their claim to uniqueness and state sponsored
Shinto. One of the requirements of surrender, which General Douglas McArthur demanded, was for the emperor
to publicly denounce his claim to divinity. It was the first time the nation heard the voice of the emperor, the voice
of a god being so sacred that one never was allowed to hear it. Furthermore, the Japanese people heard it for the
first time by being told that he was not a god. The Japanese were dumbfounded. Shinto and the government were
extracted from each other. Whereas during the war all Japanese were required to be Shinto and show reverence
for the gods by bowing before the emperor and the local Shinto shrine, after the war, Shinto (and allegiance to
“the way of the Gods”) was no longer a required adherence.
If the Japanese government had misused Shinto in this way, with its abject failure, it was time to return to the true
essence of the Shinto religion—one that was rooted in nature and harmony. At its heart, Shinto espouses a sacred
relationship between humans and nature; as the Association of Shinto Shrines has recently commented:
“[Traditionally] the Japanese viewed nature not as an adversary to be subdued, but rather a sacred space
overflowing with the blessings of the kami, and toward which they were to act with restraint…by reconsidering the
role of the sacred groves…we hope to heighten Japanese consciousness, and expand the circle of active
involvement in environmental preservation” (Jinja-Honcho, 1997).
Beliefs & practices
Union with nature
In other words, while each of East Asia’s religions that have been examined in the text thus far have a specific role
to play (Confucianism with its ethical paradigm for social structure and Buddhism with its cure of suffering and
concern for the afterlife), Shinto offers a way to structure and bring into harmony the relationship between man
and the unpredictability of nature. If nature is rife with kami, and kami are everywhere (in rocks, trees, rivers,
mountains, etc.), then one must learn to live with a sense of kinship with nature and in harmony with its forces.
One approach to doing this is by showing respect to the kami at one of the more than 100,000 shrines across
Japan, many of which are atop mountains. Further, each community/tribe/clan was understood to have its own
tutelary kami that provided protection and blessings upon that community for abundant harvest and health.
As an aside, one of the reasons Japan is so crowded is that a population nearly half that of the United States is
living in a landmass the size of the state of California. Only 20% of the land is inhabitable while the other 80% is
mountainous, where the kami live, and one does not want to live in their habitat and possibly disturb them.
Ritual
One of the essential elements to Shinto is the preservation of purity (kiyomi), and the cleansing of any impurity
(kegare), should it present itself on persons or objects. The original state of beauty and purity with which we are
created (as exemplified in the comfortability for Japanese traditionally to bathe together communally, both in the
home and in public) is celebrated in Japan. However, impurities which can come about as a result of human action
need to be purified by their removal; normally done by a Shinto priest making use of Oharai (a ceremony where
the priest waves a branch from the sacred sakaki tree (an evergreen indigenous to Japan) to purify the object,
person, or area. As an example, this is often done at the beginning of erecting a new building or purchasing a new
car.
Another important ritual is misogi, the purification ritual, conducted by standing under a waterfall, usually during
icy cold temperatures and torrential rain. Misogi washes the body and soul clean. Water is also used prior to
entering a Shinto shrine (Buddhism also adopted this practice in Japan), where one cleans the hands and mouth at
the temizuya before approaching the shrine for prayers.
As an aside, parallels of this can be seen in virtually all of the world’s religions, where water is used as a means of
entre to a sacred site or state of being. Salt is also used for purification, sprinkling it on the ground, as witnessed
with sumo wrestlers before their bouts. Purity is another reason why shoes are always taken off when entering a
shrine, temple, or one’s home.
Conclusion
Ultimately, Shinto is practiced today as a means for remaining in balance and harmony with the kami who reside in
nature. It is also a means to restore the original beauty and grace we are born into, by being aware of and taking
measures to be rid of impurity. This is done on an almost daily basis (visiting the communal shrines in one’s
geographic area), but also at significant rites of passages such as conception, at birth, at the ages of three, five, and
seven, and at marriage.
At one time, death was included in that list. However, with the advent of Buddhism incoming from China, this
passage has been enveloped by Buddhism, which marketed itself as the premier means of caring for the dead and
the afterlife. Finally, the numerous Matsuri that are celebrated across the land of Japan, in virtually every village
and at different seasonal waypoints for varying reasons, are the quintessential means for the community to
reestablish itself in relation to the kami, to each other, and to the ancestors; finding once again a perfect balance
and harmony between mankind and “the way of the Gods.”
