Japan – In the Name of All Gods
Shintoism in Japan
The Heian Shinto Shrine, located in Kyoto
Shrine maidens (maiko) performing a special Shinto Shaden Kagura dance ritual
With origins dating back to the 6th century BCE, Shintō is today Japan’s largest religion, practised by nearly 80% of the population. The basic principle of Shintō is that Gods, humankind and all elements of nature were begotten by the same parents, therefore they are the same kin and have spirits in various degrees of vitality and strength. Shintō has been a preponderant factor for shaping the Japanese race, social patterns, individual behaviour and mental attitude towards life and universe. The faith has no founder, no official sacred texts, and no formalised system of doctrine but instead Shintō beliefs are a distinct awareness that underlies an entire approach to life and to the world.This perception – referred to by the phrase mono-no-aware (the pathos of things) – is a unique Japanese way of seeing the world and its beauty. In the basis of the ethical beauty lays the concepts of makoto and kannagara-no-michi. Makoto simply means ‘sincerity’. Shintō does not have a list of rules or codes of ethics; instead, it emphasizes makoto – sincerity in the heart. Sincere people do not steal from others, lie to them, or try to murder them. Sincere people do not do things that undermine the fabric of society or bring harm to the community or family. Therefore, sincerity is the foundation of all ethical thought and conduct. If you do not have sincerity in your heart, you will not prompt to live the rules of the dos and don’ts. Kannagara-no-michi (the way as it is with the gods) refers to the idea that virtue is inseparable from the rest of life, particularly if life is to be lived in harmony with nature. Beauty, truth, goodness, morality – these are all connected, inseparable from each other. Aesthetic sensitivity, emotional sensibility toward the world and a sincere heart will naturally guide the individual to live life in harmony and behave morally.
The purity of heart and makoto live in the same hemisphere for a Shintoist. Since many years, Shintō followers have been practising rituals to purify the spirit and soul, called Misogi-harae. These rituals are the lifeblood of the practice of Shintō. They use water as the cleansing agent, and the rituals include rinsing the mouth, washing the hands and bathing. They can also be compared to dousing practices of other religions and is usually conducted by standing long hours under a waterfall, bathing in a river or sea. Many groups practise Misogi today inside and outside Japan. The ritual is defined by leaders of the groups speaking out invocations or prayers that are believed to activate the spirits. The followers pray along invoking the Kamis to purify their souls. Misogi is also used today in some forms of martial arts to prepare the mind for training and to learn how to develop the core power.
A Kamidana (Godshelf/Shinto altar) decorated with all Shinto sacred elements: shimenawa, sakaki tree, salt, sake, water, shide and ozen
The fundamental believes and worships of Shintō fall upon the ‘Kami’. The word Kami is never translated with justice into the English language. This is because there is not a single word in English that can express its true meaning. God/Deity are the words normally used in its replacement; albeit they are closely related, they are not interchangeable. This is because Kami, despite also being the creators of the universe, are not divine like the transcendent and omnipotent deities found in other religions. Kamis are not perfect – they sometimes make mistakes and behave badly. There even exist evil Kamis, but neither the good nor the bad Kamis exist in a supernatural universe – they live in the same world as human beings and in nature. Kamis respond to human prayers and can influence the course of natural forces and human events. As beings, Kami can be the elements of the landscape, like mountains, seas, trees; and forces of nature, like storms and earthquakes. Kami is in everything and is found everywhere, and is what makes an object itself rather than something else.
Shintō is deemed a pantheistic and a polytheistic faith. Its most authoritative scriptures say that there exist eighty ‘myriads’ Kamis in Japan (yao-yorozu-no-Kami) and they all have a certain degree of organic interrelatedness. However, the Kamis forming the foundation of and occupying a central role within Shintō are the ones appearing in the Japanese classics, Kojiki and Nihongi or Nihon Shoki; (namely, Izanagi, Izanami and their offspring); the two oldest extant historical records of Japan. These two ‘historical’ compilations were commissioned by Emperor Tenmu (673 – 686 AD) who was eager to demonstrate to his Chinese counterpart that the Yamato Dynasty (aka Japan) had a long and distinguished history, in this manner, ascertaining the sovereignty of Japan. Kojiki (the Record of Ancient Matters) was presented to the Japanese Court in 712 CE in the reign of Empress Genmei. According to the preface written by its transcriber, Yasumaro, Emperor Tenmu ordered Hieda no Are the compilation of the work, by collecting information from ‘oral traditions’ known as Teiki (Teiō no hitsugi) and Kuji (Honji and Sendai kuji). In essence, Kojiki is not history, but mythology. Kojiki was written in a hybrid script, fusing the use of a Chinese graph for its phonetic value with the use of a graph for its semantic value. A proper ‘Japanese written language’ did not exist then, therefore Chinese calligraphy was used for this purpose. The text is composed of three books and rather than being written for a wide readership, Kojiki was compiled to preserve the language of the myths and the events concerning the Imperial Family and its genealogy.
The fundamental believes and worships of Shintō fall upon the ‘Kami’. The word Kami is never translated with justice into the English language. This is because there is not a single word in English that can express its true meaning. God/Deity are the words normally used in its replacement; albeit they are closely related, they are not interchangeable. This is because Kami, despite also being the creators of the universe, are not divine like the transcendent and omnipotent deities found in other religions. Kamis are not perfect – they sometimes make mistakes and behave badly. There even exist evil Kamis, but neither the good nor the bad Kamis exist in a supernatural universe – they live in the same world as human beings and in nature. Kamis respond to human prayers and can influence the course of natural forces and human events. As beings, Kami can be the elements of the landscape, like mountains, seas, trees; and forces of nature, like storms and earthquakes. Kami is in everything and is found everywhere, and is what makes an object itself rather than something else.
Nihongi or Nihon Shoki (the Chronicles of Japan) was presented to the court in 720 CE, in the reign of Empress Genshō. It is Japan’s first official history texts, compiled by Emperor Tenmu’s third son, Prince Toneri, assisted by many bureaucrats and historians. This indicates a crucial difference with the work of Kojiki, as Hieda no Are was a low courtier with no official post nor academic training, but renowned only by his intelligence. He could memorise and recite any subject upon hearing them only once. Very little is known about him and there are even suggestions by scholars that he was a woman, as a number of passages within the Kojiki appear to have been written by a woman. Besides being written in classical Chinese, as opposed to Kojiki, Nihon Shoki includes many quotes from Chinese classics and chronicles. It was modelled on Chinese chronological records, thus comprising thirty books. Despite its ‘historical’ status, the first two books consist of the ‘Age of the Kami’ sections. This is because the court realised that recording the divine lineage of the Imperial Family was indispensable, so obliging the compilers to blend history with myth. The remaining books record the events of the Japanese rulers up to the forty-first Empress Jitō. Furthermore, the title Kojiki does not appear in Shoku Nihongi, the second official history after Nihon Shoki, suggesting that Kojiki was not considered a historical record.
Tokoyo-no-Kuni means the Perpetual Land. Takama-no-Hara; the world of the Kamis, Ashihara-no-Nakatsukuni; the middle land where men lived, and Yomotsu-no-Kuni; the world after death constituted the ancient Shintō three-dimensional interpretation of the world, arranged vertically. The second interpretation was a two-dimensional horizontal concept, divided between the Earthly world and the Perpetual Land, known as Tokoyo-no-Kuni, a utopia beyond the sea. Therefore, when people died at sea, Tokoyo-no-Kuni would be their next destination.
Shintō shrines usually called ‘jinja’ but also translated into miya, mori, hokora or ‘jingu’ (imperial shrine), are the places of worship and dwelling of the Kamis. Sacred objects of worship that represent the Kamis are stored in the innermost chamber of the shrine (Honden) where they cannot be seen by the public. There are currently about 80,000 shrines nationwide and each shrine is dedicated or worships one or more Kamis. Shintō shrines are visited during special events such as New Year, setsubun (the last day of the winter), shichigosan, the ‘Seven-Five-Three’, a traditional rite of passage and festival day for three-and seven-year-old girls and three-and five-year-old boys, held annually on November 15 to celebrate the growth and well-being of these children.
Many couples also choose to get married in Shintō shrines. In general, ordinary people visit shrines in order to pay respect to Kami or to pray for good fortune. Whenever a child is born in Japan, a local shrine adds the child’s name to its list, as a ‘Family Child’, analogically to the ‘baptising’ of a new-born child of the Christian faith. After death, they become a ‘Family Spirit’, or an ‘Ujigami’. If they move houses, one may choose to have one’s name added to another shrine’s list as well. This practice is carried out without the consent of the families and regardless of their beliefs, but should be observed as a sign of welcoming by the local Kami, with the promise of addition to the pantheon of Kami after death.
Gekū and Naikū Shrines are Shintō’s most sacred shrines. They are the two main shrines of the Ise Jingu or the Grand Shrine of Ise. Ise is a complex of 125 Shintō shrines that covers an area of about 5,500 hectares of Ise City, Mie Prefecture. Gekū is dedicated to Toyouke Daijingu, the Shintō Deity of clothing, food and housing (basic necessities of life), and Naikū enshrines Japan’s most venerated Deity Amaterasu Ō-MiKami, the Sun Goddess. Unlike most other shrines, the Ise Shrines are built in a pure Japanese architecture style, which shows almost no influence from the Asian mainland. Because the Ise Shrines are so sacred, no pictures can be taken near their main halls. Access to Gekū and Naikū is strictly limited, with the common public allowed to see little more than the thatched roofs of the central structures, hidden behind four tall wooden fences.
An aerial view of the Ise Jingu (Ise Shrine) located in Mie Prefecture
Amaterasu Ō-MiKami is venerated as the ancestor of the Imperial Family and as the tutelary Kami of the Japanese people. The worship of Amaterasu was initially conducted by the first ten emperors within the Imperial Palace. During the reign of Emperor Sūjin (97 BCE–30 BCE) the country was struck by severe epidemics and numerous other disasters. Following the orders of the Emperor, Princess Toyosukiiri-Hime-no-Mikoto removed Amaterasu from the Imperial Palace and enshrined her at a location in the eastern Nara Basin. The next Emperor Suinin (29 BCE–70 CE) gave Princess Yamato-Hime-no-Mikoto the order to find the most suitable permanent location to hold ceremonies for his Kami Ancestress. When the princess arrived at Ise, she heard the voice of Amaterasu saying, “I wish to live forever here in Ise, where the wind of Kamis blows and the country is blessed with rich resources of the mountains and the seas.” Yamato-Hime-no-Mikoto decided then to build a magnificent sanctuary at Ise to hold ceremonies to the Sun Goddess. This was the beginning of Naikū. Ever since, for almost 2,000 years, Amaterasu Ō-MiKami has been worshiped in Ise by the people and emperors in ceremonies led by the Jingu Shintō priests. The chief priest or priestess of Ise Shrine must come from the Japanese Imperial Family and is responsible for watching over the shrine. The shrine buildings at Naikū and Gekū, are rebuilt every 20 years as a part of the Shintō belief of the death and renewal of nature and the ephemerality of all things — wabi-sabi — and as a way of passing building techniques from one generation to the next. The twenty-year renewal process is called the Shikinen Sengū.
The Nebuta Matsuri (festival) of Aomori Prefecture
National or local festivals, known as matsuri are organised every year by the shrines or by the local communities to celebrate and show appreciation to the Kamis. Shintō rituals are the central components of these festivals. It is said that there are anywhere between 100,000 to 150,000 matsuris in Japan and some of them can gather as many as one million spectators. The Japanese sense of the changing seasons is represented in the matsuris, thus, many of these festivals have close relations to a particular time of the year, such as rice cultivating in the spring and rites to deflect epidemics, typhoons, and agricultural pests during the summer. The autumn harvest is all about thanksgiving while in the winter the festivals aim to purify the community’s soul before the end of the year and to keep people’s spirits afloat during the cold weather.
Passed from generation to generation, matsuris are timeless and ageless. Three or more generations collaborate and gather on the streets to dance, sing and eat, enjoying together national culture and traditional heritages. An important element of matsuri are processions, in which the local shrine’s Kami is carried through the town in mikoshis (portable shrines or palanquins).
A Mikoshi being carried during a Matsuri
Mikoshi are often built to resemble an actual shrine. They are usually made from wood, with extravagant gold and silver decorations and beautiful engravings, and a phoenix or another sacred creature placed on the roof. The two poles that run through its base make it possible for a group of people to carry it, bearing it on their shoulders as they transport it in the processions. As far as records go, the longest established annual matsuri (Yayoi period – 300 BCE to 300 CE) is Niinamesai (Celebrations of the First Taste), which is a rice festival held in the autumn, expressing gratitude to the gods for exercising their powers on earth and bringing about a successful harvest. The sitting emperor used to be the officer to gift the year’s first rice harvest to the Kami.
Buddhism in Japan
The most important religious and philosophical impact on Shintō came from Buddhism. Although there are records of Buddhist monks from China coming to Japan before the Asuka Period (538 – 710 CE), the official introduction of Buddhism to Japan is dated to 552 CE in Nihon Shoki. The ruler Seong of Baekje, a Korean Kingdom, sent a mission to Nara, where the Yamato Court was based at, that included some Buddhist monks to present a brilliant image of the Buddha along with scripture-scrolls and ornaments to the Japanese Emperor Kimmei (509 – 571 CE). There was an immediate resistance to Buddhism by the Imperial Court. The orthodox Mononobe and Nakatomi clans strongly opposed this new religion on the grounds that Japan already had its traditional and indigenous religion of Shintō. However, some who favoured Buddhism argued that it offered both moral and intellectual benefits which Shintō lacked and its cultural learnings would benefit the court by centralising and unifying the country. In 585 CE, Buddhism was recognised by Emperor Yōmei (585 – 587 CE) and thereafter spread fast under the patronage of his son, Prince Shōtoku (574 – 622 CE). Shōtoku renounced any claim to the throne and after the death of his father in 587 CE he devoted the next three decades of his life to the propagation of Buddhist teachings.
His aunt Suiko was crowned empress in 592, and Shōtoku was appointed Prince Regent during her reign. Empress Suiko declared Buddhism the official religion of the country in 594 CE. By 627 CE, there were 46 Buddhist temples (including the Eastern Great Temple – Tōdai–ji – that houses the world’s largest bronze statue of the Buddha – Vairocana), 816 Buddhist priests, and 569 Buddhist nuns in Japan. The fusion of Buddhism with the local Kami worship started as soon as it arrived in Japan. Buddhism itself was already a syncretic faith. By the time it entered Japan it had been amalgamated with other religions and cultures in India, China, and the Korean peninsula. When it arrived in Japan, it already had a disposition towards producing the combinatory gods that the Japanese called shūgōshin (syncretic gods). Nevertheless, the monks did accept the existence of Kamis, but they certainly saw them as inferior to their Buddha. Predictably, Buddhist claims of superiority encountered resistance by the Shintoists, so Buddhist monks tried to surmount this dispute by deliberately integrating Kami in their system. The Shintō-Buddhism amalgamation, which gave origin to Shinbutsu Shūgō (syncretism of Kami and Buddha), started first with the reconciliation of different ideas within these two faiths. Then in the eighth century, complexes called jingū-ji (shrine-temples) started to appear. When the great Buddha at Tōdai-ji in Nara was built, within the temple grounds, a shrine for Hachiman (the God of Eight Banners), the Shintō Kami of agriculture and fishing (later war) was also erected. It was deemed a reward to Hachiman for helping the temple to find gold and copper, which was used for the construction of the great statue. Buddhist religious objects addition into a Shintō shrines was supported by the idea that the Kami were lost and in need of liberation through the power of the Buddha.
As they shared the same universe as human beings, Kami were also thought to be subject to karma and reincarnation. The final stage of the fusion happened in the 9th century with the development of the honji suijaku theory (original ground tracing theory) according to which Japanese Kamis were emanations of Buddha’s, bodhisattvas and devas, who mingled with human beings to lead them to the Buddhist Way. Shinto–Buddhist syncretism thrived during the Heian Era (794 – 1185 CE). During the Kamakura period (1185–1333 CE), Buddhism became the faith of all people of all classes in Japan.
However, with the restoration of the imperial rule in 1868, Japan opened a new chapter to its history by reinstating Emperor Meiji as its supreme ruler and by abolishing the shogunate regime. This period saw Japan change from being a feudal society to having a market economy; the nationalist reaction triggered the growth of the studies of ancient Japanese literature and culture (kokugaku); the decline in China’s artistic influence; and the growth of opposition to Buddhism, still regarded as many as a foreign import. The Shinbutsu Bunri, an edict that dissociated the worship of Kami at shrines from the practice of Buddhism, was decreed in March 1868. This movement was based on the belief that Buddhism was a foreign religion which had obscured the true Japanese spirit. This bar was lifted after the end of the Second World War.
Posthumously named Kōbō Daishi (the Great Teacher), Kūkai (774 – 835 CE) is one of Japan’s most beloved Buddhist saviour. Recognised as the patriarch of the Shingon (True Word) sect of Esoteric Buddhism, Kūkai spent many years in China, where these teachings originated, learning them and later transplanting the sect into Japanese soil. Kūkai is credited for being a pioneer and introducing many cultural benefits to Japan. He established the first school for common citizens, invented the ‘kana’ script, and was noted for his calligraphy skills. The most famous Japanese poem ‘Iroha‘, which uses every phonetic kana syllable just once and the ‘Shikoku Pilgrimage to 88 sites’ are also attributed to him.
Zen Buddhism entered Japan from China in 1191 and became immediately popular among the samurai class who was attracted to its rigid self-discipline. The word ‘Zen’ is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese “Ch’an,” which means ‘meditation’. Zen Buddhism is a mixture of Indian Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. The essence of Zen is attempting to understand the meaning of life directly, without being misled by logical thought or language. Zen techniques are compatible with other faiths and are often used, for example, by Christians seeking a mystical understanding of their own faith. Zen often seems paradoxical – it requires an intense discipline which, when practised properly, results in total spontaneity and ultimate freedom. This natural spontaneity should not be confused with impulsiveness. Although Zen eventually developed traditions of study and ritual, its emphasis on personal experience has always made it a practice-oriented tradition. The practice is meditation. ‘Sitting Zen’ (Japanese: zazen) has always been central in Zen training centers, where monks rise early each morning for meditation practice and do long retreats consisting of many, many silent unmoving hours on the cushion. Zazen is a seated meditation, done in the Zen style — upright in good posture, paying careful attention to breathing in your belly until you are fully alert and present.
Christianity in Japan
The Roman Catholicism was the first Christian denomination introduced in Japan. The Protestantism and Orthodox Christianity were introduced at much later stage, by the second half of the 19th century, after foreigners were allowed back in Japan and multi faith authorised. In 1549, six years after the shipwreck event in Tanegashima, the Jesuit Missionary Francisco de Xavier from Spain and two other Jesuit priests landed in Kyushu. Then Roman Catholicism flourished briefly after its evangelisation started and a considerable number of people in Western Japan were converted. The construction of the Port of Nagasaki in 1571, played an important role to this expansion.
The tolerance to Jesuit Missionaries were regarded by the Japanese lords as a deal for the Portuguese sellers to bring into the country firearms. So much so that Nagasaki was once known as Asia’s ‘little Rome’. In its heyday, as many as twenty Catholic missionaries were living in Japan and 300,000 converts, including daimyōs and samurais were given Christian names and baptised with the encouragement to adopt Western culture. These ties were severed when Toyotomi Hideyoshi came to power and started to persecute the Christians, banning the missionaries and executing the adepts. Hideyoshi was not only retaliating against the Japanese slavery trade practised by the Portuguese, but he grew more and more suspicious about the negative influence these foreigners were bringing into Japan. The anti-Christian stance grew stronger during the Tokugawa Shogunate. The ruling class were informed of countries like the Philippines becoming a Spanish colony after converting its population into Catholicism. Japan’s colonisation attempts by European powers had to be crushed at any price. The faith was completely suppressed in 1613 and Christians who refused to abandon their belief were tortured and killed. The remaining small group of worshipers went underground in order to continue practicing their religion – becoming known as ‘kakurê kirishitian’ (Hidden Christians). And underground they remained until the Meiji Restoration in 1868, when freedom of religion was promulgated and the number of Japanese Christians slowly increased again. An estimate of two million Christians exists in Japan currently and many churches have been built across the country. Christian customs like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, bride’s white dress and weddings held in chapels are common practise in the country. However, this is mainly due to the fact that these customs have taken a secular status. They do not always purport a religious tradition.
Confucionism in Japan
Edo Neo-Confucianism, known in Japanese as Shushi-Gaku (朱子学), refers to the schools of Neo-Confucian philosophy that developed in Japan during the Edo period. Neo-Confucianism was an attempt by the philosophers of the time to create a more rationalist and secular form of Confucianism by rejecting superstitious and mystical elements of Taoism and Buddhism that had influenced Confucianism during and after the Han Dynasty. The philosophy believes that the universe could be understood through human reason, and that it was up to man to create a harmonious relationship between the universe and the individual. The 17th-century Tokugawa Shogunate regime adopted Neo-Confucianism as the principle for controlling people and Confucian philosophy took hold. The pioneering Japanese Neo-Confucian was Fujiwara Seika, a former Zen practitioner interested in Confucian thought, who eventually rejected the Zen ideas to become one of Neo-Confucianism’s foremost advocates in Japan. Fujiwara’s student, Hayashi Razan, served the Tokugawa shōguns whereby state patronage establishing the Shōheiko academy, which taught Neo-Confucionism to the samurai class. After the Kansei Edict established Neo-Confucianism as Japan’s official ideology, the Shōheiko academy became the premier authority on Confucian orthodoxy. The influence of Neo-Confucianism was challenged by the rise of the Kokugaku philosophical school in the 17th and 18th centuries. Kokugaku advocates argued that the ancient Japanese were better representatives of Confucian virtues than the ancient Chinese were, and that there should be more intellectual focus on ancient Japanese classics and the indigenous religion of Shintō.
Although philosophical competitors, Kokugaku and Neo-Confucianism would co-exist as the dominant philosophical thought of Japan during most of the Edo period, until the arrival of Western philosophy during the Meiji era. The social aspects of both philosophies are hierarchical with focus on filial piety (a virtue of respect for one’s parents, elders, and ancestors). This created a Confucian social stratification in Edo society that previously had not existed, dividing Japanese society into four main classes: the samurai, seen as the Japanese equivalent of the Chinese scholar-bureaucrats, at the top of the social hierarchy, then the farmers, artisans, and merchants. The samurai were avid readers and teachers of Confucian thought in Japan, and established many Confucian academies during this period.
