American Academy of Religion

A Fresh Look at State Shinto Author(s): Wilbur M. Fridell Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Sep., 1976), pp. 547-561 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1462824 . Accessed: 11/09/2012 08:01
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JAAR 44/3 (1976)547-561

A Fresh Look at State Shinto

WILBURM. FRIDELL
Abstract Because of its extreme political sensitivity, the Japanese called State Shinto was the object phenomenonretrospectively of very little criticalstudyduringthe "StateShinto period"itself (1868-1945).This was especiallytrue of Japanesescholars;and among foreigners,even Daniel Holtom'sexcellentworkfocused too narrowlyon the nationalisticroles of Shinto shrines. Now that more objectivepostwarstudiesare appearing,it is possible to reappraisethe place of State Shinto (a) within the Shinto world; and (b) beyond the Shinto world, in the larger context of Japanese nationalism. Within the Shinto world, this essay deals particularlywith the relationshipbetweenState and ShrineShinto becauseof the distressingtendencyof Westernscholarsto confuse,or virtually equate, these two types of Shinto duringthe pre-1945decades. Granted,there were large areas of overlap between them, but also significantareas of divergence. Moving beyond the Shinto world as such, State Shinto is placed within the broadercontext of Japanesenationalismas a whole. While State Shinto did in fact serve as one major component of Japanese nationalism, it combined with extraShinto elements (e.g., Confucianisticethics) under the larger umbrella of kokutai (national essence, characteristics).It is more comprehensively accurate,therefore,to speakof "kokutai nationalism"than of "Shinto nationalism." Until such fundamentalrelationshipsas these are clarified, researchin prewarShinto will inevitablysufferconfusionsand ambiguities. This article is a quest for orientation in these matters.
HERE is

studies,as to the natureand role of whatwe have come to call StateShinto in the pre-1945modem periodof Japanesehistory.This is true withinthe Shinto world, wherewe needclarificationregarding relationof State Shinto to the other types of Shinto (such as Shrine Shinto) duringthose decades. It is also true
WILBUR M. FRIDELL is Associate Professor of Japanese religion in the Department of

a certainconfusion,especially Western-language in Japanese

of SantaBarbara. is theauthorof Japanese He Shrine ReligiousStudies,University California,

Mergers, 1906 - 12 (Tokyo: Sophia University, 1973). He has published articles in Monumenta Nipponica and the Journal of Asian Studies, and he reviews for the Journal of the American

Oriental Society.

547

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WILBUR M. FRIDELL

beyondthe Shinto world as such, as we attemptto understandState Shinto as one component in the larger context of Japanese nationalisticlife and thought. Whatfollows is an effort to help illuminethesemattersin theirbroadoutlines. It is predicatedon the beliefthat we do well to step backand get the overallview as a guide to continueddetailedstudies. In that sense, this is a quest for orientation. Detailed studies, both by myself and many others, have brought me to the point whereI feel the need for some kind of panoramicsurveyfromthe vantagepointof the present. We may begin by recognizingthat, in Shinto studies,the years 1868-1945are generallydesignatedthe "State Shinto period."What do we mean when we call these decades the State Shinto period? We do not mean, of course, that the national-state-imperialdimensions of Shinto tradition were important only during this modern time-span. Such things as saisei itchi (union of religious ceremonyand government)and the mythological sanctificationof the Imperial House obviouslygo backto veryancienttimes,and haveoperatedto one extent or another in all periods of Japanesehistory. Neither do we suggest that, in saying "StateShinto,"we have exhaustedthe meaningof Shinto for the modernprewar era. Other types of Shinto, such as Folk Shinto and Sectarian Shinto, played significantroles during the "State Shinto period." What we do meanin designating1868-1945 "StateShinto period"is simply the that, duringthese decades,Shinto elementscame undera greatdeal of overtstate influenceand control as the Japanesegovernmentsystematicallyutilized shrine worship as a major force for mobilizing imperialloyalties on behalf of modern nation-building.Duringthat period of time state facts werethe big facts in Shinto life. I
THREE CONTEMPORARYSCHOLARS

Before taking up State Shinto as such, it is importantto considerthe larger context within which it operated in the State Shinto period. I shall do this by discussingthe contributionsof threecontemporaryscholarswho have influenced my thinking in this area. The first is Robert Ellwood, Jr. of the Universityof Southern California. I have long felt that some of the finest insights in the Shinto field have come througha broadsociologicalanalysisof the data. Now Ellwoodconfirmsmy own intuition with the following statementin what might be called the Durkheimian tradition. I quote from Ellwood's book, The Feast of Kingship: Shintois not basically of productivity the fields,muchlessthe 'naturerites in While such secondary worship'of earliercommentators. meanings, rightly that the interpreted, may not be excluded,it is essentialto understand fundamental thrustof Shinto,ancient modern, sociological. and Thatis, it is is
concernedwith thelife of socialgroups,from hamletto nation,and theircollective symbols and sources of power.'

Implicitly recognized here is the fact that Shinto, with its powerful group orientation, has contributed much to the sanctification of basic Japanese collectivities.At the grassrootslevelShinto has functionedin homes,and has been
'Robert Ellwood, Jr., The Feast of Kingship,Accession Ceremonies AncientJapan in
(Tokyo: Sophia University, 1973), pp. 42-43. Italics added.

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the primaryreligiousfocus of local communitylife. Local communities,typically hamlets, have acquired a certain sanctity through such practices as religious festivalsand the worship of hamlet ancestorsas sacredkami (spirits,deities). At the nationallevel, mythologyhas both reflectedand sustainedthe view that Japan (and its rulers)were sacrosanct.Thus, especiallyduringthe State Shinto period, basic groups from home-and-hamletto the nation itself were viewed as "holy communities"2 chargedwith sacrednoumenal overtones.Thesegroups, together with their sacralsymbolsand reveredheads, constituted"religion" a genuinely in authentic Japanese mode. Indeed,as one gets behind the forms of conventional institutionalizedreligion to the heart of Japanese sacred values, it becomes and increasinglydifficult to draw a clear distinctionbetweenwhat is "religious" what is "social." We turnnext to EdwardShils and his illuminating conceptof a sacredcenterat the teartof societies.While Shils wrotewith Westernsocietiesprimarilyin mind, I believe his observationsthrow considerablelight on the prewarJapanese scene. Shils' opening statementruns essentially as follows:
Society has a center . ... The centre, or the central zone, is a phenomenon of the realm of values and beliefs. It is the centre of the order of symbols,of valuesand beliefs,whichgovernthe society. It is the centrebecauseit is the ultimateand irreducible; and it is felt to be such by many who cannot give The explicit articulationto its irreducibility. centralzone partakesof the natureof the sacred.3

Shils elaborateson this by sayingthat a society is informedby a centralvalue system, which takes its impetus from the sacred center. This value system is espoused by the elites of society, who identify themselveswith the sacredcenter and share its charismaticauthority. The sacred center is grounded in a cosmic order,which servesas transcendentnorm and ultimate legitimationboth for the centralvalue systemand the centralinstitutionalsystem(e.g., economic, political, ecclesiasticalandeducationalinstitutions).Kinshipand familysystems,of smaller radii, are microcosmsof the centralinstitutionalsystemand tendto buttressit. To varying degrees, people feel a need to belong to the transcendentorder and to participatein the sacredcenter.This theydo throughcontactwith society'ssacred on symbols, even if only intermittently special occasions. Many people are more or less apatheticabout the sacredcenter,its values and symbols,while a few may be outrightalienatedor hostile. It is, however,the natureof the authorityenjoyed by society's elite to be expansive: that is, the elite wish to obtain universal acceptancewithin theirsociety of the sacredorderand norm of whichtheyare the privilegedcustodians;and they undertakeactivitieswhich promise to maximize that acceptance. As suggestedabove, Shils'basicallyWesternanalysisdoes not fit the Japanese case in every respect. For instance, the idea of transcendencewould have to be handledvery carefullyin the Japanesesituation,and a specialrole would have to be recognizedfor the reveredheads of basic social groups. Nevertheless,thereis much in Shils' contributionwhich is useful in explicatingthat sanctitywhich the found in the social matrix. Japanese have so characteristically
fromJoseph Kitagawa. his Religions theEast(enlarged Philadelphia: See 2Borrowed ed., of Westminster Press, 1968),ch. I.
3Edward Shils, "Centre and Periphery," in The Logic of Personal Knowledge, Essays Presented to Michael Polyani on his Seventieth Birthday, 11th March 1961 (Glencoe, Ill.: The

me Free Press, 1961),p. 117. I am gratefulto DelmerBrownfor introducing to this article.

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WILBUR M. FRIDELL

sceneduringthe StateShintoperiod,the sacred Adaptedto the Japanese of center would theinseparable be in complex state-nation-emperor, grounded the cosmicorderof kokutai(literally, nationalstructure, character, nation-body; Kokutaitook the physical and "nation-body" polity,essence,characteristics).4 within which liftedit to themetaphysical of thatuniversal level structure Japanese national worked its destiny. wasa brilliant life It out ideal,elusiveand mystical sanctioned the nationalmythsintimately withancient associated appealing, by Shintotradition. The centralJapanese valuesystemstressed, aboveall, loyaltyto the sacred center of state-nation-emperor. Within the central institutional system,all institutions wereseen as units of a pyramiding or family-state, family-nation overwhichtheemperor as national father(kazoku kokka), presided thesupreme whichserved microcosmic as forthenational figure.Kinship groups, prototypes trained Japanese the the family, peoplein basicfilialpiety.Thissupported central valuesystem,in thatfilialpietyextended the national to levelfoundits highest The expressionin emperor-loyalty. elites of societywerethose politicaland intellectual leaders stoodclosest theemperor spokein hisauthoritative who to and name.Symbols whichthe peopleparticipated the sacred in orderwere through suchthingsas the national and Shintoshrines flag, imperial rescripts portraits, withtheirethnicarchitectural ritualforms,etc.5 and To one degree another, or between national leaders were 1868-1945, Japan's able to arousethe loyaltiesof the peoplethrough appealsto the sacredorderAll center-values. Japanese and were to and subjects institutions expected support conform sacred to kokutai thecosmic as norm context and within which lived they and worked a national as innerreservations at were family.Any whoharbored leastrequired give outer,formalcompliance the kokutai to to ideal.Thosefew alienated deviants who actually stoodagainstkokutaihad to be neutralized. Thethird scholar fromwhomI wishto borrow therecently is deceased William P. Woodard, hasadvanced notionof a "Kokutai who the Cult" thechieffocus as for national the loyalties, especially during latterpartof the StateShintoperiod to (1930's, 1945). understood If looselyandnotin a tightinstitutionalized I sense, believe the conceptof a KokutaiCult can be extremely useful as a broad framework withinwhichto locatevarious in elements the pre-1945 nationalistic
scene.

As definedby Woodard,the KokutaiCult was "Japan's emperor-statecentered cult of ultranationalism militarism."6 was a conglomerate and It of nationalistic elements whichincluded of dimensions Shinto,butwas important not limitedto Shinto.Thus, in additionto shrineworshipand festivities, it
4Kokutai was an old term lifted to prominence in the State Shinto period as the epitome and organizing principle of all national sentiments and ideals. It was enshrined in the Imperial Rescript on Education (1890), and acquired increasing force as the Japanese people moved through the ultranationalistic years of the 1930's and 1940's. On kokutai, see David M. Earl, Emperor and Nation in Japan, Political Thinkers of the Tokugawa Period, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964), Appendix D. 5Onfamily-state, loyalty and filial piety, see my article, " 'Family-State' (kazoku kokka): An Imperial Ideology for Meiji Japan," East Asian Occasional Papers (II), Asian Studies at Hawaii, No. 4, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, July, 1970), pp. 144-55. For an analysis as to how Shinto supported national familism and emperor-loyalty, see my book, Japanese Shrine Mergers, 190612: State Shinto Moves to the Grassroots (Tokyo: Sophia University, 1973), pp. 60-79. 6William P. Woodard, The Allied Occupation of Japan 1945-52 and Japanese Religions (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972), p. 11.

A FRESH LOOK AT STATE SHINTO

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included such things as: commitmentto the constitutionalpronouncementthat the emperorwas "sacredand inviolable";ethics (shaishin) indoctrinationin the schools; solemn ceremonialvenerationin the schools of the ImperialRescripton Education and the imperial portraits; the observance of national holidays; Confucian socio-ethical patterns;etc. There were, of course, important Shinto dimensions to some of these things, but as a group they were not primarily Shintoist in nature. The Kokutai Cult incorporateda broad range of principles and practiceswhich stretchedbeyond the Shinto world as such.7 Woodard's distinction between Shinto and the total reach of Japanese nationalismshould come as no surprise,for we have known for some time that thereweremanyextra-Shintoelementsin the widernationalisticpicture.Yet there has persisted a curious tendency to think and speak of "Shinto nationalism" without integratingit within the largerscene. One reason, no doubt, is that that largerscene(thevast, complex phenomenonof modernJapanesenationalism)has been an elusive thing to get hold of; and I find that, in giving it a name (Kokutai Cult), WilliamWoodard has helped me to get a handle on it. The broadcontext within which State Shinto operated has shifted into sharper focus, with the consequencethat the relationshipbetween State Shinto and other factors in the total pictureis now more clearly delineated.8 We have touched on the thought of three scholars, Ellwood, Shils and Woodard. The three complement each other, and together suggest a fruitful analysisof modernState Shinto. We may summarizeby sayingthat Ellwood sets the basic approachin termsof sacredgroupsfromhamletto nation. Shils'insights cosmically suggest, in the Japanesecase, a sacredcenter (state-nation-emperor), grounded in kokutai. Woodard specifically points ot a Kokutai Cult as the
7Woodard'sdistinction between Shinto and the larger Kokutai Cult is quite explicit. See, for instance, p. 11 where he says, The Kokutai Cult was not a form of Shinto. It was a distinct, separate, and independent phenomenon. It included elements of Shinto mythology and ideology and it utilized Shinto institutions and practices, but this did not make it a form of Shinto. The point comes up again when Woodard discusses the process whereby Dr. William K. Bunce, Chief of the Religions Division of the Allied Occupation, drafted the postwar "Shinto Directive": Had any of his advisors been able to explain that the main problem was not Shinto nationalism but kokutai nationalism or extremism, the drafting would have been simpler. . ." (p. 62). Finally, Woodard's description of the various facets of the Kokutai Cult (see esp. pp. 12-13)touch on many elements which are not essentially Shintoist in nature. Some of these have been mentioned above. 81would add that the Kokutai Cult should probably be seen as a type of civil religion for its particular time-span. I plan to go into this on another occasion, but I believe a good case can be made to show that something like a civil religion has operated in Japan from ancient times; that it has drawn on native patterns of thought, feeling and valuation at a very deep (often unconscious) level; and that, while there has been much mutual spillover and mixing between civil religion and the discrete religious traditions (Buddhism, etc.), more often than not civil religion has taken precedence over the traditions. During the modern prewar period Japanese civil religion was consciously promoted, in the form of the Kokutai Cult, as a national faith for all Japanese regardless of their private religious affiliations. Indeed, it functioned as a kind of super-faith for the nation, serving to unify and motivate Japanese subjects during a period of sustained national crisis. I have certain difficulties with the expression "civil religion"as applied to the Japanese case; but that discussion will have to be reserved for another time.

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overarchingcontext within which State Shinto ideas and institutionsfunctioned in the pre-1945decades.

THE SHINTOWORLD AND THEKOKUTAICULT

We have come to the point where we can illumine more concretely the relationshipbetween State Shinto and the largercontext of the KokutaiCult. In so doing, we will also identifythe majorconstituentelementswithin State Shinto itself and attempt to clarify their interrelatedness the total Shinto scene. in Our three most importantconcernswill be with ShrineShinto, State Shinto, and the Kokutai Cult. Although refinementswill be made to fill out the picture, quite broadlyit will be shown that (1) Shrine Shinto was one component,among others, of the largerphenomenonwhichwe call State Shinto;and (2) State Shinto, in turn, was one component among others of the still larger umbrella of the Kokutai Cult. The three relatedto each other somewhatas concentricarcs, each successivelymore inclusive than the other. AlthoughI recognizethe riskof distortioninherentin any diagramof complex humaninstitutions,I believe it may be useful to pursuethe analysiswith the aid of Figure 1. Here I summarizethe principalelementsin the Shinto world, as well as their relationshipto the Kokutai Cult, duringthe State Shinto period. Whilethe focus is on column B (State Shinto), I have includedcolumn C (SectarianShinto) to roundout the Shinto picture; also columnA, as suggestiveof those manyextraShintoelementswhich operatedas partof the largerKokutaiCult.This diagramis scene:for that, one would by no meansa completesurveyof the religio-ideological need to locate the Buddhists, Christians, Communists, etc. ad infinitum. The intent here is rather to clarify relationships(1) within Shinto, and (2) between Shinto and the Kokutai Cult. Workingfrom Figure I and drawingon all that has been said to this point, I will now offer short, simple definitions for the terms basic to this discussion. In orderto emphasizethe three most importantterms(Shrine Shinto, State Shinto, and KokutaiCult), they have been capitalizedin the section which follows, also capitalizedand boxed in Figure 1. (The descriptionswhich follow areunderstood to apply during the State Shinto period.) KOKUTAI CULT - That broad complex of values, symbols, beliefs, institutionsand practicesthroughwhich the Japanesepeople participatedin the sacredcenter of Japanese life (state-nation-emperor), groundedin the cosmic all order of kokutai (national structure,essence). As a focus of national life, the Kokutai Cult became increasinglyexplicit over the prewardecades, reachingits culminationin the ultranationalisticperiod from the early 1930'sto 1945. STATE SHINTO (Kokka Shint56)- Those Shinto elements which were under Japanese state or imperial supervision/control, and which were fundamentallysupportive of the Kokutai Cult: primarily Imperial Household Shinto, the Ise shrines,shrinesfor the war dead, and (with qualifications)Shrine Shinto.9
9A pattern evolved whereby the government was able to give preferential treatment to these various types of shrines, as over against ordinary religious bodies (those associated with Buddhism, Christianity and Sectarian Shinto). Article 28 of the Meiji Constitution (1889) would normally have precluded any such special treatment, for it guaranteed a certain freedom of religious belief, with the implicit corollary that there would be no establishment of religion. The

Figure 1 State Shinto and the Kokutai Cult (in the State Shinto period) KOKUTAI CULT

A
Extra-Shinto elements (or elements not primarily Shintoist in nature) which were fundamentally supportive of the Kokutai Cult. Meiji Constitution Imperial Rescript on Educ. Veneration of Rescript & imperial portraits National holidays Ethics (shuishin)texts
in
the

B
STATE SHINTO (Shinto elements fundamentally supportive of the Kokutai Cult) 1. Imperial Household Shinto 2. Grand Shrine of Ise 3. Shrines for the war dead 4. SHRINE SHINTO (the shrine system proper) (a) Government and National Shrines (b) "People's Shrines"

schools

cinthe schools , Confucian patterns, e.g. filial piety Patriotic societies ... etc.

/
/

/__0

Folk patterns as the his Folk Sh

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WILBURM. FRIDELL

Shrinesfor the war dead (shokonsha; gokoku jinja) - Shrines set aside especially for the enshrinement of the spirits of the war dead. Came under governmentsupportand supervisionin 1874-75as sh5konsha, or "spiritinvoking shrines"(through rites, spirits of the war dead were called back from the spirit worldto receivethe homage of the living). In 1939,theirdesignationwas changed to gokoku finja, or "countryprotecting shrines."By 1945, a total of 148 such shrines existed, the chief being Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which enshrinedthe spirits of all who died in the imperialcause. The emperorhimself worshippedat Yasukuni on special occasions. SHRINE SHINTO (Jinja Shinto) - That form of Shinto which centeredin the shrine system proper, as nationalized under the modernJapanese state; the tens of thousandsof traditionalshrinesin the landwhichservedregionaland local 10 communities. SectarianShinto(Kyaha Shinto) - Popularreligiousmovementsoriginating in unsettled moderntimes, chiefly from the mid-19thcentury.Designatedby the Japanese government as Kyoha Shint6 groups, but some more Shintoistic in nature than others;also, a good deal of religious syncretism.Characteristically focused around the religious experience of charismatic founder-leaders,with emphasis on the salvation of the individual believer. Clearly distinguishedby governmentauthoritiesfrom the shrines of Shrine and State Shinto. III
THE KOKUTAICULT: PRIMARYAND SECONDARY SUPPORTS

HouseholdShinto(Kashitsu at Imperial Shinto)- Ritesconducted three of The shrines withinthe palace as grounds, functions theImperial Family. three shrines dedicated Amaterasu-6-mikami,the sacredspiritsof deceased to are to and emperors, to all the kamiof heavenand earth. Grand a in Shrineof Ise- Actually complexof shrines Mie Prefecture, the enshrined "SunGoddess"), (so-called principal deitybeingAmaterasu-6-mikami the highancestral kamiof the Imperial Familyand chiefof all Shintokami.A focus of nationalreverence. apex of shrines, The aboveand beyondthe shrine and (see systemproper SHRINESHINTO, note 10).

and in involved the StateShinto Havingidentified definedthe keyelements

authorities got around this by making a careful distinction between the shrines and the religions. (For instance, only the shrines could be calledjinja, shrines; whereas the institutions of Sectarian Shinto had to be called ky5kai, churches.) While it could not be denied that there were in fact authentic religious dimensions to shrine life, the authorities played these down and steadily maintained that,for administrativepurposes, the shrines would not be treated as religious bodies. They thus circumvented the restrictions of Article 28 by declaring that, in the case of the shrines, the article simply did not apply. This freed the state to elevate the shrines to a privileged position in national life (in effect, above the religions), as an important component of the Kokutai Cult. Note: The qualifications on the participation of Shrine Shinto in the State Shinto phenomenon will be discussed in the section, "State and Shrine Shinto: patterns of relationship." '0Although shrines are central to most forms of Shinto, we limit the designation "Shrine Shinto" to those shrines in the shrine system proper, as distinguished from special shrines in categories by themselves - such as Ise, Imperial Household Shinto, and shrines for the war dead. (For more on this, see the section entitled, "State and Shrine Shinto Distinguished.") When I speak simply of the "shrinesystem," it is to this shrine system proper that reference is made. The prewar organization of that system fell into two main divisions: (1) Government and National Shrines (kankoku-heisha, or kansha for short), usually large and imposing and of explicit national-imperial significance; and (2) "People's Shrines" (minsha), the great mass of shrines from prefectural rank and below, most of them small local shrines in towns, villages and hamlets.

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world, I would like in this final section to make several general observations. According to the official Japanese national image, nothing stood outside kokutai or the Kokutai Cult, Ideally, every dimension of Japanese life was understood to fall within the cosmic scope of the great national norm and its institutional manifestations. As a matter of fact, however, some elements of nationallife were more fundamentally supportiveof kokutaithan others.Thus,in 1, columnsA and B are markedoff by solid lines to indicatethat they were Figure primarykokutai supports,while column C is drawn with a dotted line to convey the idea that the nationalistic roles of Sectarian Shinto groups were more secondaryin nature. Much morestudymust be madeof the complexvariablesof the thirteenbodies which comprisedthe categoryof SectarianShinto. It can be said, however,that the most fundamental concernin thesegroupswas in the areaof personalreligious faith. National interestswere more or less forcedon them by the statein returnfor official recognition.While nationalthemestook on increasingprominenceas the State Shinto period progressed, historically the initial raison d'etre of these sectariangroups was not nationalistic.
STATE SHINTO COMPONENTS AND GOVERNMENT POLICY

Of the four elementsI have listed as componentsof State Shinto (Figure 1, p. 553), the first three were perhaps under closest national control and influence. Much the same could be said of the governmentand nationalshrines,that upper layer of elite shrines in the shrine system proper (Shrine Shinto). Government supportfor and control over the many local "Peole'sShrines"was less consistent or complete. We may sketch in briefest outline some major phases of governmentpolicy toward these State Shinto components duringthe State Shinto period.Japanese authoritiessought (1) to develop the rites of ImperialHousehold Shinto, making them models for the shrines of Shrine Shinto; (2) to tie Ise Shrine closer to ImperialHousehold Shinto, and to encourageIse worshipamong the people;(3) to nationalizeand increasethe numberof shrinesfor the wardead, with Yasukuni Shrineas the focus for this type of popularreverence; (4) to nationalizeall the and shrines of Shrine Shinto, making them state institutionsfor the generationand and expressionof nationalisticloyalties.Policy toward(4a) Government National Shrinesinvolvedgovernmentsupportand recognitio of both shrinesand priests, with ritual content closely tuned to national-imperialthemes; while the general intent in relation to (4b) "People'sShrines"was to draw them ever more tightly into the State Shinto complex."
STATE AND SHRINE SHINTO DISTINGUISHED

There has been an unfortunatetendencyto confuse, even equate, two major dimensions of the pre-1945 Shinto world: namely, State Shinto and Shrine Shinto. This is particularlyapparentin Western writings.
I"Mybook, Japanese Shrine Mergers, 1906-12, deals with policy (4b) during the late Meiji years. In a recent article I analyze some of the major dimensions of both policies (4a and 4b) over the entire stretch of the formative Meiji period, 1868-1912: see "The Establishment of Shrine Shinto in Meiji Japan," Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 2, 2-3 (June-September, 1975), pp. 137-68.

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The confusion may have begun with Daniel Holtom, who in his very influentialbook, The National Faith of Japan, referredto "ShrineShinto, also called State Shinto."'2The same equation of State and ShrineShinto is reflected in the "ShintoDirective"of 1945,which addresseditself to that partof the Shinto world which it termed "a nonreligious national cult commonly known as State Shinto, National Shinto, or Shrine Shinto."'3Elsewherein the same directive, both Kokka Shinta (State Shinto) and Jinja Shint5 (Shrine Shinto) are given as Japaneseequivalentsfor the single EnglishexpressionState Shinto.'4WilliamK. and WilhelmusCreemers,'6 even WilliamWoodard'7proceedto equate Bunce,15 the two for the State Shinto period (although Bunce and Woodarddo make the qualificationthat State Shinto was the same as Shrine-Shinto-nationalized). I find I must disagreewith this distinguishedcompany on this one point, and argue for a more carefully drawn definition of prewar Shrine Shinto as constitutinga part of State Shinto, but not its entirety.In short, the two were not coterminous. The problem hinges on how broadly one defines Shrine Shinto during the State Shinto period. If one were to define Shrine Shinto as containing all componentsof State Shinto, one would indeed be justifiedin saying (with Bunce and Woodard)that the shrinesof Shrine Shinto, as nationalizedunderthe state, constituted the whole of State Shinto. The majordifficulty with such a broad definition of Shrine Shinto is that it would of necessitysubsumesuch institutionsas ImperialHousehold Shinto, the Ise shrines, and shrinesfor the war dead as sub-categoriesof the Shrine Shinto system. The most serious problem here is the inclusion of Imperial Household Shinto underthe rubricof ShrineShinto. On the contrary,it was clearlya special categoryof Shinto in its own right;and hereI am followingthe lead of suchdiverse Japanese Shinto scholars as Ono Soky6 and Murakami Shigeyoshi, both of whom describe State Shinto as compounded of Shrine Shinto and Imperial HouseholdShinto (the two distinguished).'8 other words, ImperialHousehold In Shinto is seen as a distincttype of Shinto, not a sub-categoryof ShrineShinto. By thus differentiatingImperial Household Shinto from Shrine Shinto, already
12Daniel C. Holtom, The National Faith of Japan (reprint, New York: Paragon Book Reprint Corp., 1965), p. 6. Originally published, 1938. '3Quoted in Wilhelmus H. M. Creemers, Shrine Shinto After World War II (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968), p. 221. 141bid.,p. 219. 15WilliamK. Bunce, Religions in Japan (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1955), p. 166. '6Creemers,Shrine Shinto, p. 58, where he says, "Shrine Shinto, or State Shinto." '7William P. Woodard, "The Occupation and Shrine Shinto," in Proceedings of the Conference on Shinto Since 1945 (Claremont: Blaisdell Institute, 1965), p. 11:

Thus State Shinto consisted of the faith and observances of Shrine Shinto during the period in which the shrines were nationalized. For all intents and purposes the meaning of the two were identical at that time. Also, on p. 10 of his book: State Shinto (Kokka Shinta or Kokkateki Shinta is identical with Shrine Shinto except that under it the shrines and the priests were nationalized. .. '8Ono Soky6, Shinto, the Kami Way (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1962), p. 15; Murakami Shigeyoshi, Kokka Shinta (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1970), p. 16 and passim. Imperial Household Shinto came under the administration of the Imperial House, rather than the government.

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Shrine Shinto is reducedto one componentof State Shinto. State Shinto was the broadercategory,includingwithin it both ShrineShinto and ImperialHousehold Shinto (as well as other types;see Figure 1). ShrineShinto, on the otherhand,was a narrowercategory which did not include these other elements. In short, State and Shrine Shinto were not coterminous,which fact precludestheir equation. One could stop righthere,and the point would havebeenmade. A similarcase, however,can be made for the independencefrom ShrineShinto of the Ise shrines and the shrines for the war dead. Ise came under certain special government regulationsdesigned for it alone; moreover, it has always been regardedby the Japanese people as standingabove and beyond the shrine system as such, in a unique category by itself. Shrines for the war dead were likewise treated as a specialtype of shrine.As a group,they had certainritesauthorizedfor themalone. The chief of these shrines, Yasukuni,was even administeredby the Army and Navy, ratherthan by the ordinaryshrineoffice in the Ministryfor Home Affairs. If we thus separate out Ise and the shrines for the war dead, as well as the shrinesof the ImperialHousehold,we come to the most carefullydrawn(andfrom my point of view most correct)definition of pre-1945Shrine Shinto:it consisted simply of the great mass of ordinaryshrinesin the "shrinesystem proper."This definition would be diagrammedas follows:

Figure 2 Shrine Shinto (in the State Shinto period) SHRINE SHINTO consisted of: The shrine system proper a. Governmentand National Shrines b. "People'sShrines" All nationalized as STATE SHINTO

Othertypes of shrines (outside Shrine Shinto): ImperialHousehold Shinto The Ise shrines Shrinesfor the war dead

From this it shouldbe clearthat ShrineShinto was not coterminouswith State Shinto, but was ratherone of its components - a majorone for sure,butstill only a part of the larger whole.
STATE AND SHRINE SHINTO: PATTERNS OF RELATIONSHIP

HavingdistinguishedState and ShrineShinto, it may be helpfulto sketchthe overall profile of their interrelationships:

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Figure 3 State and Shrine Shinto (in the State Shinto period)

1. ImperialHousehold Shinto 2. Ise shrines 3. Shrinesfor the war dead

STATE SHINTO (A & B)

B m

4a. Government& National Shrines (upper level of Shrine Shinto)SHRINE

O SHINTO

(B&C)

4b. "People'sShrines"(lower level of Shrine Shinto)

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The second of these points (the incomplete nationalization of the shrine system) should warn us against any purely national definition of Shrine Shinto during the period under discussion. Taken together, the two points set forth distinctionsbetweenShrineand State Shinto which should effectivelynegateany attemptto make a simpleeqation betweenthe two: therewere majorareasboth of overlap and of divergence.
'9In my book on shrine mergers, I discuss the government's failure to meld the two in the late Meiji years. Although in later years up to 1945 greater progress was made along these lines, all evidence I have seen suggests that a full fusion of State Shinto with local shrines was never achieved.

In Figure3, A is thatdimension StateShintowhichdid not includethe of shrine but thoseotherStateShintoelements (Shrine system Shinto), rather proper earlier in delineated Figure1 as Imperial Household and Shinto,theIseshrines, shrines the wardead. for B isthatpart StateShinto of which Shrine of Shinto, overlapped consisting the and of Shrines obvious largeGovernment National (4a national-imperial import of Figure1). C is a broadareawithin shrine the where drawing a linebetween the of system StateShintoandShrineShintobecomes rather It of complex. consists themany Shrines" of Figure which were a (4b "People's 1), officially partof StateShintobut in reality into The only partially integrated the statesystem. greatbulkof these shrines in centered localhamlets, and villages,towns,and city neighborhoods, their chief interestswere traditionally a local folk nature:health,crops, of etc. state community solidarity, Now,it wasthepolicyof theJapanese to promote consciousness this level, to reachdown and drawthese at national-imperial shrinesas muchas possibleinto nationalshrinelife. This intentis grassroots indicatedby the verticalarrowsin the figure. Effortsdirectedtoward the of wereonly partially successful. implementation this policy,however, The situationin area C is clarifiedif we makethe important distinction between state's the formal-official definition the shrines the onehand,and of on theiractual or nature function theother.Botharevitalto thehistorical on record, buttheymustnotbeconfused. to withinthe According official policy,all shrines entire shrine and (Shrine system Shinto)werenationalized, assuchwere regarded as stateinstitutions the mission exalting with of national and symbols values.If suchwerein factthecase,allof Shrine Shinto(BandC)would indeed included be withinState Shinto.Actually,however, this officialdefinitionof the shrines shouldbe seenmoreas a statement intentwhichwas only partially of realized the At and Shrines during StateShintoperiod. thelevelof Government National rather At Shrines" (B), it was realized substantially. the levelof "People's (C), it different however, was a somewhat story. Eventhoughthese shrineswere includedin nationalshrineprograms, even though many of them claimed often responded ties, national-imperial and even though their parishioners to of overtures recognition fromthe state- in spiteof these positively certain national the of Shrines" remained factors, localorientation "People's stubbornly Here melding StateandShrine the of Shinto never factcomplete.19 was in strong. We mayconclude therewereat leasttwo reasons that whyStateandShrine Shintowerenotcoterminous the First,as elaborated during StateShintoperiod. in the previoussection,therewerecomponents State Shintowhichstood of outside Shrine Shinto: Household the and for Shinto, Iseshrines, shrines Imperial thewardead.Second, there thatvastspread was within Shrine itselfwhich, Shinto whileit didnotexactly stand of outside StateShinto, never was fullyincorporated into the statecomplex: many"People's the Shrines."

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WILBURM. FRIDELL THE EXPRESSION KOKKASHINTO(STATESHINTO)

Thislastobservation aboutStateShintois as muchattitudinal substantive as in nature. hasto dowiththewayweperceive StateShinto the and It phenomenon, it turnson the Japanese KokkaShint5. expression Kokka a nounmeaning ornation, themostsatisfactory is state and translation of Kokka its form.It is for Shint5is onewhich grammatically preserves nominal
this reasonthat I preferthe translation"StateShinto,"whichcan be understoodas a nominalcompound. (Nation Shinto would be awkward; National Shinto or and Statist Shinto would be adjectival,not nominal.) I have with some reluctancecapitalizedthe Englishword "state" give us the to compoundpropernoun State Shinto, comparableto othermajortypesof Shinto: Shrine Shinto, Imperial Household Shinto, Sectarian Shinto, etc. I say with reluctancebecausethis simpleact of labelingtends to reifywhat in actualfact was a dynamic,fluxing complex of events, thought patternsand institutionalforms. Reification takes place, of course, whenever we label anything. I am sensitiveabout it in this instance,since whatwe now in retrospect call particularly Kokka Shint5 was not an easily definable, neatly boundaried enclave, but a conglomerate of nationalisticvalues and patterns which shaded off into many relatedphasesof Japaneselife. Seen in this way, it mightbetterbe thought of as a focus than a prescribedarea. An inquiryinto the use of the JapaneseexpressionKokkaShintJ may help us to avoid unnecessaryreificationof this prewarState Shinto phenomenon.While the matteris open to furtherinvestigationand verification,thereis evidencethat the nominal compound Kokka Shint5 is a postwar termwhich was rarelyif ever used by the Japanese themselves during those decades which we designate the State Shinto period. FujiyaToshio saysquiteflatly,"TheexpressionKokkaShintJ originatedafter the Pacific War. . ."20 The postwar Shinto Dictionary, moreover, is explicit about this, statingthat KokkaShint5 was not a termused by the Japanesebefore the conclusion of the Pacific War, but rathera new postwar expression which gainedgeneralcurrencyafterit was employedby the occupationauthorities.21 It is also instructiveto learnthat, while the prewarShinto Encyclopedialists an entry for Kokkateki (National) Shint5 (adjectivalform),22it contains no entry for Kokka (State) Shint5 (nominal form). It is only with the postwar Shinto Dictionary that the nominal expression Kokka ShintO makes its first 23 appearance. My own researchbears this out, for I have come across no written evidenceto suggestthat Kokka Shint6 was used by the Japanesepriorto 1945.24 In the discussion above I distinguished nominal and adjectival forms of expressionfor the reason that I believe nominal forms to be more reifyingthan adjectival.Somehow Kokka(State) Shint5 has a harder,more rigidlyconceptual ring to it than the softer, looser expression Kokkateki(National) Shint5.

20FujiyaToshio, "Kokka Shint6 no seiritsu" (The Realization of State Shinto), in Kokka to shakyv (State and Religion), vol. I of Nihon shakyvshi k5za (Series on Japanese Religious History) (Tokyo: San'ichi Shobo, 1959), p. 215. 21Anzu Motohiko, ed., Shint6jiten (Osaka: Hori Shoten, 1968), p. 417. 22Shint6daijiten (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1939), 2:47. 23AnzuMotohiko, ed., Shinta jiten, pp. 406, 417. 24Ofcourse, Daniel Holtom used the nominal English expression State Shinto in his prewar writings, as did Kat6 Genchi. But they did it as scholarly observers writing in a foreign language. My concern here is not with the historians, but with the history-makers.

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It may be that what I have describedhere is more or less standardfor any historicalsequenceas it is viewed,first at the time of its happening,and laterafter it has become crystalized in historical retrospect. All historical events are dynamic,flowing happeningsat the time of their occurrence,and only afterward become hardened into conceptual entities. In the Japanese case under consideration, this reifying process is representedby the progressionfrom the adjectivalexpressionKokkatekiShint5 to the nominalexpressionKokkaShintO. Whatis being suggestedhere,of course,is that, as historians,we will producea richer,more colorful, more authenticaccount of past events if we hold as muchas possibleto what might be called primaryterms:namely,expressionsemployedby the prewarJapanesethemselves.If we thus speak as they spoke, we will actually shift our focus beyond generic terms altogether,whetheradjectivalor nominal. For the prewarJapanesewere not inclined to employ generic labels of any sort, much preferringsimply to speak in concrete, particularisticfashion of "the shrines"(finja). Are we to conclude from this that a secondary term such as Kokka (State) Shint5 must be droppedfrom our vocabularyon the groundsthat it was not used by the Japanese themselves at the time? Not at all. As historians, it is quite legitimatefor us to have recourseto broad umbrellatermswhich have come into vogue after the fact, as eventsare seen in retrospect.Indeed, therewould be great confusion in the recordif we could not refercomprehensively such epochsas the to French Revolution, the Protestant Reformation, the State Shinto period, etc. Each of these is a termwhich was coined ex post facto, and which encapsulatesa whole range of historicalphenomenamore satisfactorilythan any single primary term contemporaneouswith the events under discussion. So we employ a secondarytermlike State Shinto withoutapology. True,it has the disadvantagethat, as a nominal expression once removed from the facts, it moves in the directionof reification.But its greatadvantageis that it catchesup in one convenient term an entire complex of events and thought patterns which would be difficultto encompasswith any other comparableexpression.And the whole point of this discussion is to emphasizethat the reificationwhich lurksin the expression Kokka (State) Shint5 is minimized when we realize that it is, indeed, a secondaryand not a primary term. The final word, therefore,is an appeal of sorts. Let us always be clear, in our discussionsof "StateShinto,"that it is in fact a secondaryterm.In otherwords,let us neverimply in our writingthat a concept "StateShinto"was operationalin the minds of prewarshrineleadersas a formal category of thought. Let us leave no doubt that the term is a scholarlyexpressionwhichhas beenappliedafterthe fact, and not a notion which functioned in the political arena of the time. Only by ex differentiating post facto labelsfrom the actualdata of historycan we work our Suchan approachwill help free way beyond the labels to recapturea living past.25 us from reified conceptualization,in favor of concrete particularity.And of the two modes of perception,there is no question in my mind which comes closer to the Japaneseway of thinking.
25Most of the English-language works which deal with State Shinto should be reexamined with this point in mind. These would include: William K. Bunce, ed., Religions in Japan (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle: 1955), p. 166; Kishimoto Hideo, ed., Japanese Religion in the Meiji Era (Tokyo: Obunsha, 1956), p. 94; Joseph M. Kitagawa, Religion in Japanese History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), pp. 213-14; Sakamaki Shunz6, "Shinto: Japanese Ethnocentrism," in The Japanese Mind, ed. Charles Moore (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1967), p. 30; H. Byron Earhart, Japanese Religion: Unity and Diversity (Encino: Dickenson Publishing Co., 1969), p. 79; and Joseph J. Spae, Shinto Man (Tokyo: Oriens Institute for Religious Research, 1972), p. 22.