Shinto

Kami are not gods in the sense of omnipotent creators. The scholar Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) defined them as anything 'extraordinary and awe-inspiring': the sun and storms, mountains, waterfalls and ancient trees, ancestral spirits, the deities of the classical myths and even historical people. The traditional phrase yaoyorozu no kami, 'eight hundred myriad kami', expresses that their number is without limit.

Many kami belong to a place, a lineage or a trade; others have spread across the country as networks of branch shrines. A kami can be divided without being diminished, so a branch shrine receives a share of the spirit of its head shrine through a rite called bunrei. Kami are thought to reward respect and to become harmful if neglected, which is why pacifying restless spirits – of the dead, of disease, of disaster – has always been part of the tradition.

The central ethical and ritual pair in Shinto is purity and pollution. Kegare – pollution caused by death, blood, illness or wrongdoing – is not sin in the Christian sense but a condition that separates people from the kami and must be removed. This is done by harae (purification) and misogi (ablution with water), from the simple rinsing of hands and mouth at a shrine's water basin to the great purification rites held nationwide on the last days of June and December.

A formal Shinto rite follows a stable pattern: purification of participants and place, the invitation of the kami, offerings of rice, sake, salt, water and seasonal food, the reading of a norito (ritual prayer), the presentation of sacred branches of sakaki, and finally the return of the kami and a shared meal of the offerings. The same pattern underlies a household rite, a groundbreaking ceremony and a great shrine festival.

A shrine (jinja) marks ground where a kami is present. Its approach begins at a torii gate and leads along a path (sandō) past a water basin and guardian lion-dogs (komainu) to the worship hall (haiden), where visitors pray. Behind it stands the main hall (honden), closed to the public, which houses the shintai – the object in which the kami dwells, often a mirror, a sword or a stone. At some of the oldest sites there is no honden at all, because the mountain or forest itself is the sacred body: Ōmiwa Shrine in Nara Prefecture worships Mount Miwa directly.

Shrine architecture preserves distinct lineages. The plain cypress halls of Ise, with thatched roofs and no curved lines, represent the shinmei style; Izumo Taisha the taisha style; the flowing, asymmetric roof of nagare-zukuri is the most widespread; and the lavishly decorated gongen style of Nikkō Tōshōgū reflects the Buddhist-influenced taste of the early Edo period. Ise alone rebuilds its sanctuaries every twenty years on an adjacent plot (shikinen sengū), a practice traced to the late seventh century.

Shinto has no canonical scripture, but the court chronicles Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720) record the myths that later became its reference point: the creation of the islands by Izanagi and Izanami, the sun goddess Amaterasu hiding in the Rock Cave of Heaven, her unruly brother Susanoo slaying the eight-headed serpent in Izumo, and the descent of her grandson Ninigi to rule the land, from whom the first emperor Jimmu is said to descend.

These texts were compiled to legitimise the imperial house, and they preserve political as much as religious purposes. The Engishiki of 927 adds the ritual side: court ceremonies, norito prayers and a register of officially recognised shrines, many of which still exist. Regional gazetteers (fudoki), above all that of Izumo, record local traditions that diverge from the court version.

When Buddhism arrived in the sixth century it did not replace kami worship but absorbed and was absorbed by it. From the Nara period onwards temples were built within shrine precincts (jingūji), monks recited sutras before the kami, and the kami were understood as beings who themselves sought Buddhist salvation. By the Heian period the theory of honji suijaku held that the kami were local manifestations (suijaku) of buddhas and bodhisattvas, their 'original ground' (honji): Amaterasu, for instance, was identified with the cosmic Buddha Dainichi.

This combination, shinbutsu shūgō, was the normal form of Japanese religion for over a millennium. Mountain religion (Shugendō) fused the two completely, and medieval thinkers such as Yoshida Kanetomo (1435–1511) reversed the hierarchy by declaring the kami primary and the buddhas secondary. In the Edo period the Kokugaku ('national learning') school of Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane sought a 'pure' ancient Way free of Chinese and Buddhist influence – ideas that fed directly into the policies of the Meiji Restoration.

In 1868 the Meiji government issued the orders known collectively as shinbutsu bunri, separating kami from buddhas. Buddhist statues, bells and priests were removed from shrines, shrine-temple complexes were split or dissolved, and in some regions a wave of anti-Buddhist destruction (haibutsu kishaku) followed. Shinto was reorganised as a national institution: shrines were ranked, priests became officials, and rites were standardised around the imperial cult and the Ise shrines.

The state declared shrine rites to be civic ceremonies rather than religion, which allowed it to guarantee freedom of religion on paper while expecting all subjects to participate. This system, later called State Shinto (kokka Shintō), was linked with emperor-centred education and, from the 1930s, with militarism; Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, founded in 1869 to honour those who died for the imperial cause, became its most charged symbol. Religious movements that drew on kami worship but were independent of the state – such as Tenrikyō and Konkōkyō – were classified separately as Sect Shinto.

On 15 December 1945 the Allied occupation's Shinto Directive ended state support. Shrines became private religious corporations, most of them joining the Jinja Honchō founded in 1946, and the 1947 Constitution separated religion and state. Whether officials may take part in shrine rites, and visits by politicians to Yasukuni, remain subjects of legal and political debate.

Surveys consistently find that a minority of Japanese describe themselves as religious, yet shrine practice is woven through the year and the life course. Millions make a first shrine visit of the New Year (hatsumōde); newborns are presented at the local shrine; children are brought in their finest clothes for Shichi-Go-San; students buy amulets before exams; and cars, buildings and business ventures are blessed. Weddings before the kami (shinzen kekkon), popularised after an imperial wedding in 1900, remain one of several options.

The common pattern has been described as 'born Shinto, die Buddhist': life-affirming occasions belong to the shrine, funerals and memorial rites to the Buddhist temple. The local shrine festival, with its portable shrine (mikoshi), floats and night stalls, is often the most important community event of the year.

Several shrines hold a special place in the tradition, either as the head of a nationwide network or through their connection to the myths and the imperial house. A number of them form part of World Heritage properties.