SHINTO IN HISTORY

Introduction: Shinto past

and present
John Breen and Mark Teeuwen

Sea of Japan
The Shinto present
The place of Shinto in the religious scene of contemporary Japan as a vibrant,
independent and coherent religion would seem self-evident. Shrines, the
concrete symbols of Shinto, dot the landscape of urban and rural japan.!
Shinto shrines, with their distinctive torii gates and shimenawa ropes can be
discreet, nestled in wooded precincts, or tucked away behind rows of shops;
they can also be more imposing, defining the landscape in which they are set.
The ancient shrines at Ise and Izumo and more modern creations like the Meiji
and Yasukuni shrines in Tokyo are examples of the latter type. The material
symbols which such shrines have in common, and which distinguish them
from other religious structures, like those of Buddhism, say, attest to a shared
heritage. Shrine priests across Japan are distinguished from Buddhist monks,
other religious figures and the laity, by black eboshi hats, garments of white silk,
and the shaku, a wooden implement priests carryon ceremonial occasions. It is
evident, then, to even the most casual observer that Japan's }OO,OOO or so
;>hriI1~~~ and their a!!~lld@.!..ri~i?1J.._do indeed belong to one and the same
tradition. The organisaeional structure one would expect of an independent
and coherent religion is apparent, too. Some 75% of the nation's shr0~.sand
priests belong tolinja Honc~~,.~_~~Cl:r:~~a~l~organisation based in T~yo. The
majority of the remainder of shrines are dedicated to the rice delty,Inari, and
are affiliated to the Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto. There are also two
institutions that train men and women from all over Japan for the shrine
priesthood: Kokugakuin University in Tokyo and Kogakkan University in Ise.
Again, there is manifest the uniformity of practice to be expected of a
coherent and distinct religious tradition: from participants' \VClshi~~L~Lh_ands
~~_()f.mo~t~son passing under the torii, through the casting of coins
and ringing of the deity-summoning bell (suzu), to the clapping of hands and
bowing of heads as greeting to the kami deities. Events in the annual and life
cycles provide the main structures for such shrine practice. Shrines have their
own special 'feast days' to mark founding and other unique events, but there is,
for the rest, a striking synchronicity amongst shrines throughout Japan: New

II

Map of Japan
xu

Year, the Dolls' festival in March (hinamatsuri), children's day in May (tango no
sekku), the tanabata and bon festivals in July and the autumn harvest festival,

)?

hand, 2 and local shrines and the practices and beliefs of ordinary Japanese who
venerate there, on the other.
There is further, striking evidence of a dislocation between image and
reality, between what are central and local agendas. The Shinto establishment
lays claim to some 110 million Shinto practitioners, a figure which corresponds
to some ninety percent of the population of Japan. This statistic is reproduced
annually in government surveys on religious affiliation. Yet all the indications
are that 'Shinto' - as opposed to, say, jinja or kami - has no meaning at all for
the vast majority of Japanese, regardless of generation. Japanese attend shrines
and beseech kami at festivals and on other occasions, too, but they have no
awareness that their practice constitutes something called 'Shinto,' or that they
themselves are 'Shintoist.' They certainly do not, themselves, profess affiliation
to the Shinto religion. The stri~!!1g,Jlt!.ti1ic. it turns out, is 9.btai!1~.9Jrrihe
~vernI!1~Ilt's Office for. Ci.tli:;:;;al Affairs. (Bun.k.acho) asking shrine priests to
su1?mit.paJishioner numbers; these figures themselves are obtained from local
~!2111ent population registers.
These slippages suggest that there is an obvious case for deploying the term
'Shinto' with very considerable caution in discussions of contemporary
Japanese religiosity. We argue that it is vital to distinguish between shrine
cults - the reality of those multifarious activities and beliefs that are manifest
in shrines both local and central - and 'Shinto' - the ideological agenda of the
establishment, rooted especially though certainly not uniquely, in reverence
for, or at least identification with, the imperial institution. There is, of course,
no denying the continuities across shrines, from the smallest rural shrine to
that of the imperial ancestress in Ise, in terms of symbols, practices and,
indeed, beliefs - at least at a basic level. And yet it remains that these
continuities fail conspicuously to converge with the establishment's articula
tion of Shinto. We clearly overlook this slippage, these tensions and,
contradictions, at our peril. 'Shinto' is not, then, in any obvious sense, what
contemporary Japanese 'do at shrines,' nor what they think before the kami,
since it is not what they themselves understand that they do and think; Shinto
is, rather, what the contemporary establishment and its spokesmen would have
them think and do.
The main focus of our concern in this book is Shinto in history, not in the
present, but any historical exploration might usefully begin with an awareness
that the contemporary dislocation between centre and periphery, image and
reality, is not a new phenomenon; it is a contemporary manifestation of an age
old dimension to the problem of Shinto present and past.

all of which draw many contemporary Japanese to shrines. Likewise, the birth
of a child, special (November) ceremonies in a child's third, fifth and seventh
years, coming-of-age ceremonies (on 15 January), and weddings, too, provide
opportunities for shrines, their priests and parishioners all over Japan to engage
in the practice of what we now know as 'Shinto.'
To the extent that such practice is sustained by any sort of 'theology' at all,
and not simply by a need to confirm and strengthen family, communal or even
national ties, it is apparently a straightforward and simple one: the kami,
whatever their identity and provenance, will, when addressed with correct
etiquette, appropriate prayers and adequate offerings, deign to confer blessings
on the supplicant. l~\,ariably.the blessings sought and won are of a this
worldly variety: success in exams, recovery from sickness, longevity, the
flourishing of a business, a happy marriage or an easy birth are typical
examples.
Yet anotherdimension of Shi!!!o is s1.!ggested by the typical location of
shrines -rnthe hea~t'of the natu~~l environment, at the feet, or on the summits
of mountains, backed up ag~;~st~ed'~~pses, in the vicinity of waterfalls.
Shrine practice invests inmountains, trees, rocks and other natural phenomena
~ sa~~ed q~~lity~~d'i4~~ti~~~jherrias-th~d~eiirrigplaces of kami deities.
These facts point up a defining relationship between Shinto and nature;'wn"lch
is everywhere underscored and articulated in the available literature on Shinto
in Western languages. The same literature points to still another dimension of
Shinto thought and ritual, much l~ss~yid~Jlt!()_ thecasual observer: the
c~!1!L'!lity,oJ th~jrp."peri,~Unstitutio!l~ We are told that;rnperi~l~yths,s~--;;-ha-;
those articulated in the eighth century Kojiki and Nihon shoki, rites, such as the
Daijosai enthronement, and imperial deities, foremost among whom is
Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, and imperial shrines, like that of Amaterasu
in Ise, constitute Shinto's most holy texts and practices, its central deities and
most sacred places. A cursory exploration of imperial ritual in contemporary
Japan - the enthronement rituals for the present emperor, Akihito, say - is
sufficient to confirm that it does indeed share key symbols with local shrine
cults. From the involvement of ritualists clad in eboshi and white silk garb, to
the emperor's veneration of Amaterasu both in the palace and subsequently,
too, at Ise, the symbolic commonality is evident.
It is here, in the literature on the centrality of the imperial institution in
Shinto, that we stumble upon a suggestive anomaly. For, despite the evident,
and significant,..'<:.?E1~~ality _on the.Emboli~J~:-:el, there i-;-noe~T.4~~~~~t_~l
that such shrine pra<:ticeE'_~nd kami beliefs as ar~_comE:?-r:..~r:2~r::~_theJa.pan_e~e
today are dominated by, or even <:onsCi9!!1)C related to, imperial themes. Still
less are l()faLpH.<:ti<;;~Lilnc!.~liefssustailledh belief. in, or eve~_0flmate
acquaintance with, im'peri~L pra<:tices and beliefs. The slippage here is that
between ~ ;el{.c~~-ci~usly 'Shinto' establishment and the national, not to say
nationalistic, agenda professed by the majority of its members on the one

Until the relatively recent publication of a series of seminal articles by the

historian Kuroda Toshio, the Shinto establishment's construction of the Shinto
past went unchallenged by specialists writing in Japanese, English and other

The Shinto past

Western languages. To this day, that construction remains largely unques

tioned in non-specialist literature. There is some value, therefore, in a brief
rehearsal of both the establishment position and Kuroda's incisive critique of
it.
In a nutshell, 'establishment' spokesmen, like Hirai Naofusa, have
disseminated the view in English as well as Japanese th_~~llillto isthe
indigenous religiQilQf Japan, and has continued in an un severed line from
prehistorical tim.es to the present; that Shinto. is.. ~i9ue . in, say, its attachment
I to nature, and, as such, constitutes the basis of Japanese culture. Hirai and
others argue further that Shinto constitutes, and has always done so, the
ultimate expression of Japan's unique polity, centred on the imperial
institution. Critical to the persuasiveness of the arguments of Hirai and others
like Joseph Kitagawa who follow him very closely, are the structural sub
divisions of Shinto: 'shrine Shinto,' 'folk Shinto' and 'sect Shin:t-;;::rSh~i~e
Sh{ntohas'e'~ist~d,-~cc~rd1nii:~Hirai,'from the beginn{Ilg-~f}';p<mesehistory'
and has its most lofty expression in the religious devotions of the imperial
family to Amaterasu:" by folk Shinto, or 'popular Shinto,' 'the substructure of
Shinto faith,' Hirai seems to refer to all other practices before the kami that do
not take place at 'established' shrines. Sect Shinto, finally, comprises the
thirteen new 'Shinto-type' religious sects that sprang up in the social tumult of
the nineteenth century. In this seamless multi-layered vision offered by the
establishment, there is no room for dynamism, contradictions or tensions. The
emphasis is on continuity and changelessness, rather than change.
Kuroda's main counter to this view, as articulated in English in a seminal
article entitled 'ShiE.to in the history of Japanese religion,' is that 'Shinto' as the
<!i~ autonQ}llQ.Y"'!Ilcl indellenc!~!.rli:!igi()~~~~I!0wtoday is an invention
of nineteenth century: J~anese ideolQK.\!~s. 5_I3..EOfore the__ M~ijLpo~~ that
'!t1thorised the' sepa.rill:jon-'-o[ Shinto and Buddhism, Japanese religious culture
had been to all intents and' purposes' defined b-y-B~ddhlsm.1> Shrines and
shrin~-base(r-practi~wer~-~thi~g more than Buddhism's 'secular face':"
kami, for their part, were understood to be 'manifestations of the Buddha.'S
The path to the revolutionary change in early Meiji was paved, of course,
with the writings of various intellectuals in the preceding Edo (1600-1867)
period, men like Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) who conceived of kami and
shrines as constituting a tradition quite distinct from, and unquestionably
superior to, Buddhism. Itwas l\iQ!Qori and othe.!:.~JLk..~m whQ..'firmiLfix~d'
the definition of Shinto as th~~cli~flou~ religi0.E of Japan. 9 These men owed
an intellectual debt, in their turn, to the writings of men like Yoshida
Kanetomo (1435-1511), but Shinto theorists of the medieval period prior to
Yoshida, such as the Watarai school at the Outer Shrine of Ise, were all
'adherents of the orthodox [Buddhist] teachings.' None of these men
questioned for a moment that Buddhism constituted the 'over-arching
principle.T? It is nonsensical, Kuroda asserts, to talk of Shinto as though it
existed as an independent religion at this or, indeed, at any earlier age in
Japanese history.

Contrary to the claims of some, then, the state formalisation of kami rituals
and the state ranking of shrines during the Heian period (794-1185) did not
mark Shinto's emergence as an 'independent' indigenous religion; indeed, these
developments coincided precisely with new theological formulations that
sought to explain kami in Buddhist terms, defining the kami as 'transforma
tions .of the Buddhas manifested in Japan to save all sentient beings.U!
Kuroda's crit~of the religious _sjtuation.jI!.----l2IT~1i~~'illJill2_an i~.}!lQre
Er-~;~ative still. ,'hiIl!Q.'JIlits .earli~st uS,age ill' s<lY,.!.he_~i~on S~?~i"y.'as, he
insists. a ref~I!~io.!_~ome indigenous creed at allbut, rather, (or Taoism.
The characters read as 'Shinto' in Japanese were used in eighth century China
to mean Taoism, and it would have been natural for Japanese to use the same
term in the same way. 'Teachings, rituals and even the concepts of imperial
authority' __ -everything from the veneration of swords and mirrors to ~elig~~~s
titles'an,l th~ physical structure of the most sac~ed' shrliieonse'~
s'pring
from T~ois'~; so, too, were local beliefs defin~d by Ta-;;ist infi~~~~~.ITTa(;lsm
~tally--p~r~aded early Japan's religious milieu, obliterating what indigenous
practices may have existed prior to that foreign creed's advent. 'Shinto,' in its
earliest known usage, was then nothing but a Chinese cultural import.J''
The new enthusiasm for the study of Shinto in academic circles outside
Japan is due, in no small degree, to Kuroda's ground-breaking contribution.!"
For all its incisiveness, however, Kuroda's approach is itself not problem-free.
It leaves us with a portrayal of Japanese religious history potentially as devoid
of dynamism as that of Hirai and the Shinto establishment. Hirai posits Shin..!o
~sthe.s.E::~le.~..u~~:~1.igj()U~jlLst:9.ric~!jJack<i~_<lg?-inst which all religiCl~s
pbenomena including Buddhism are subtly transformed even as they were
~ffortl~~sry--;;,~commodated. Kuroda, in his turn,'accords-f()1)uaaIilsIil'a
function not altogether dissimilar: Buddhism is the over-arching, defining
influence within which all other religious phenomena were transformed in
time, even 'to the point of obliteration.t-f Kuroda disassembles the construct of
a continuous Shinto tradition, stating that it is 'no more than a ghost image
produced by a word linking together unrelated phenomena.T'' but in the
process he comes very close to writing out of Japanese history not only 'Shinto,'
but shrines, their priests, kami and distinctive religious practices as well. Pace
Kuroda, it is vital that we remember that many shrines, priestly lineages, kami
beliefs and rites do display a remarkable degree of continuity over very long
periods of time. There is similarly a striking degree of continuity over time in
the imperial institution: its symbols, myths, and some of its rites. It is
incumbent on us to explore these continuities and their inter-relationship
further.
With regard to the former, the symbols of torii .~!lcl ..shimena.!Y.r!,2E~f
verifiably ancient pedigree; so!__~gain, is 10<:a.L~h~i!l~""p!.acti~~
belief
unquestionably ancient, at least i-;;--such basic terms as the supplicant's
recognition of the need for purification before supplication, say, or the
summoning of kami by hand-clapping, and the propitiation of the kami,
whatever their provenance, for benefits of a this-worldly nature. The

an.

identification, evidenced.pY.1lhr.i.tl-UQcation, between beliefu....m:!if!ic::~s~!KI the

D~tyra.l en.\:'ir:Q.nmgDLis-.a.lso.-~1):3n.c:.!~_n..L.Ioinsi~ on the existence of
contin u~)'jQ IQ_<;:'<i.I. s..YmQQli.smt.Qr~E!~_~~~c!.~~U~Lis };)gLol. CQ.',l.r.s<~,._ to deny the
possibility of more or less profound influen~es from, say, Buddhism, Taoism or
other imported practices at various historical stages; it is not, in other words, to
d;~y the reality of change that ires"at fEe hear'toE anyt~~d{tion.
With regard to the imperialinstitution, we'neia to note that it was in the
late seventh to early eighth century that the Nihon shoki and the Kojiki texts
were written, the lse shrines were commandeered by the ruling elite as the
ancestral shrine of the imperial family, and the annual Niinamesai ritual (as
well as its grander version, the once-in-a-reign Daijosai) was reformulated and
staged as a celebration of the emperor's privileged relationship with the Sun
Goddess, Amaterasu.l ' While it is true that there were historical breaks in the
performance of, say, the Daijosai, it remains that the symbols of the imperial
institution, whatever their ultimate provenance, have their roots firmly
embedded in ancient Japan. Again, it is important to bear in mind that from
Japan's ancient period this imperial symbolism, however indebted to Taoist
ideas, was never superseded; it was never overtly challenged or discredited by
any group of intellectuals, nor was it at any time replaced.l'' This applies to all
intellectuals, but most obviously to those various self-consciously 'Shinto'
groups of men that formed at different stages of Japanese history: the men who
ran the ]ingikan or 'Department for the Affairs of the Deities' in the classical
period, for example; the Watarai priests at Ise in the medieval period, or the
Yoshida and Shirakawa priests and the nativist exponents of the pre-modern
period.
None of these groups 'overcame' imperial symbolism, or denied its validity,
but it remains incumbent upon us to consider critically the place of imperial
symbolism in their thinking and writing. The nature of the metaphysical, or
more practical, negotiations these thinkers conducted, willingly or otherwise,
with regard to the imperial institution and its symbolism is one of several areas
demanding our concern. Another is the relationship between the imperial
centre and the aforementioned groups of intellectuals on the one hand, and
rural, local shrine cults on the other, especially at the times when those
intellectuals were most active: what influence, if any, might each have exerted
on local shrine cults, their beliefs and practices? Such an investigation might
enable us to talk with Sonoda Minoru of the 'Shintoisation' of shrines in
ancient Japan; that is, the 'subverting' of specific local shrines, and their
subjection to the influence of the central imperial cult. It might, again, prove
more accurate to speak of a succession of attempts at 'Shintoisatiori' in the
classical, medieval, early modern and modern periods, since in each of them the
national or universal agendas that constituted 'Shinto' adopted different guises.
Shinto as articulated by the Watarai priests was different from that articulated
by Yoshida Kanetomo, which in turn differed from that of, say, Edo nativists.
Kuroda's critique discourages explorations of this sort, largely because of his
insistence that Buddhism explains all. It is conceivable that in his enthusiasm
6

r~

to challenge the Shinto establishment view, he overlooks other dimensions to

the dynamism of Japanese religious culture. One concerns the fraught question
of the transformation of Buddhism in Japan. If we can di~e.st.~~_~s~l~e~oL!!:e
idea that all shrine.1?L':l~!.~~_2g..<!...~....E~!.!g~.()L.!)elL~LLr:!_J~!!lL.~~c~ssar:ily
constitute 'Shinto,' it becoIlles.~asie..!:! .f'.rh.'!ill'.L..tQ-.2:.s...k. YJ_/;J..e!h",r in~EK~Il.(;)Us
praE.tice, influ~'~cert~'-;-g;;at~~ or les~~r:ext.entQY J3u.ddhism,.:Taoism. and
j\;iatic patterns of folk religious practice,dic! not jnsQII}e.profo).lIl,d Y{ay leave
it~-~ark, in its turn, on the various forms of Buddhist practice adopted in
j~pan. Was li: n(;t O\\l{~g to more or less indigenous habits of faith disclosed in
shrine practice that Japanese Buddhism adopted the unique forms that it did?
Amason points out that 'the distinction between the inhabited lowlands and
the mountainous regions seems to have been particularly important for the
development of religious symbolism and the acculturation of Buddhist
ideas,'19 and indeed, mountain cults of at least partly indigenous origin have
shaped much of Japanese Buddhism. Also, from its very inception Japanese
Buddhism related to the kami in a very active way, incorporating them into
Buddhist ritual and practice. There has been a tendency among specialists of
Japanese Buddhism to marginalise kami-related aspects of Japanese Buddhism
and exclude them from the 'real' Buddhist tradition. However, the influence of
kami ritual and mythology especially on the esoteric Buddhist sects (Tendai
and Shingon) was profound, and continued over centuries. The comments of
Kushida Ryoko in his classic Shingon Mikkyo seiritsu katei no kenkyil are worth
heeding: 'Monks of the medieval period no longer regarded the kami classics as
geten, works from outside the Buddhist tradition. Not only were they Buddhist
works (naiten), [to these monks,] the kami classics were the very essence of the
Buddhist teaching.V" The mere fact that to this day most temples have a small
shrine within their grounds demonstrates that kami -cults have penetrated
deeply into Buddhist practice; and the abundance of Buddhist theological
texts, many of them still practically unexplored, dealing with subjects such as
kami purification or the religious meaning of the three Imperial Regalia,
demonstrates that topics that most would classify as 'Shinto' also held the
intense interest of Buddhist monks and their patrons over many centuries.
Not.Q.~en, can Buddhist i ~ ritnal forms be seen to .Qgve
i~!!uen<::~c1~/;J.rine.practice..an..d_ShintQ..tho.ughLthroughout J:.he medieval period;
but Buddhist thought and practice, too, were transformedunder the influence
of k~-If w~ccept Kuroda's argument in it; most extn~ii;'e form, and
ci'Ck;pThis stance that there was no distinct 'Shinto' tradition of thought during
the pre-modern period, we render ourselves unable either to explain the
process of amalgamation that dominated pre-modern Japanese religion, or to
see the Shinto tradition that rose to prominence in the Edo and modern periods
in its proper historical context.
If one provisional conclusion can be drawn from the above, it is that the
paths of the kami through Japanese history have been manifold. Kami have
formed the focus for a great variety of local cults, many of which persisted
largely unchanged through many centuries. They have played a central role in

,I

The classical period is covered by four essays. Tim Barrett discusses the
profound formative influence of Taoism on Shinto in early Japan. Barrett
provides abundant historical examples of the relationship between Shinto and
Taoism during this early period, and gives special attention to the adoption in
Japan of the imperial title of tenn6 (Ch. tianhuang), its background, and its
religious and political implications. Sonoda Minoru focuses on the relationship
between shrine cults and nature mentioned above as one of the enduring traits
of kami cults. His essay explores the ritual means by which early Japanese
transformed their natural surroundings into a cultural landscape, infused with

religious and historical meaning. Referring to early mythological materials as

well as early poetry, Sonoda uncovers the deep symbolic meaning of woods and
forests in shrine worship. Nelly Naumann discusses the establishment and the
functions of the ]ingikan or 'Department for the Affairs of the Deities,' which
was set up in the seventh century as part of contemporary attempts to
reorganise Japanese government along the lines of the Tang Chinese
bureaucratic state. Naumann provides a detailed overview of the state cult of
which this office was in charge, and of the Chinese and indigenous sources
from which it derived.
Allan Grapard closes this section with a discussion of the central role of
both shrine and temple ritual in the Japanese state of the Heian period. He
addresses this issue from various angles, offering analyses of the institutional
framework within which rituals were performed, the political dimensions of
this body of rituals, and their economic significance. Grapard opens up a
tantalising perspective on these matters by calling upon us to reconsider ritual
in terms of 'production, ingestion, and digestion.'
Topics from the medieval period are discussed in two essays by Mark
Teeuwen and Bernhard Scheid. Teeuwen explores the functions that kami, and
especially Amaterasu, performed in esoteric Buddhist thought and ritual,
which, as pointed out by Kuroda, formed the dominant religious paradigm of
the age. Discussing esoteric Buddhist forms of kami purification, shrine
worship, and kami court ritual, Teeuwen describes the emergence of a
Buddhist kami discourse that was instrumental in the subsequent development
of Shinto into an independent religion. Bernhard Scheid's essay provides an
analysis of Yoshida Shinto's central doctrinal text, the fifteenth-century Yuiitsu
Shint6 my6b6 y6shil. He demonstrates in detail how esoteric, exoteric, and ritual
elements are revealed in this text, and discusses how the dichotomy of open
versus secret defines its structure. Scheid's analysis not only sheds new light on
Yoshida Shinto thought and ritual, but also offers an example of how texts of
this kenmitsu type (which constitute the majority of Japanese medieval religious
literature) can be fruitfully read.
The section on the Edo period is opened by Wim Boot. Boot offers a
detailed study, on the basis of primary sources, of the deification of Tokugawa
Ieyasu as Toshogu Daigongen in the early seventeenth century. Comparing
this event with the earlier deifications of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and of Fujiwara
no Kamatari (quoted as precedents in the polemics that accompanied Ieyasu's
deification), Boot sheds new light on its religious significance, and argues
against the interpretation that this deification was a politically inspired exercise
of bakufu propaganda. Brian Bocking focuses on sanja takusen, a distinctive
type of hanging scroll inscribed with oracles of the Ise, Kasuga and Usa
Hachiman shrines. Bocking uses this scroll, produced through some six
centuries, as a window through which to view the dynamic development of
Japanese religions over this long period of time. Bocking's choice of focus
eloquently reveals the limitations inherent in the conventional method of
tracing 'Buddhist' and 'Shinto' history as two separate fields of study.

imperial ritual, and continue to do so to this day; they have penetrated deeply
into the ritual and theology of Japanese Buddhism; and finally, they have
inspired a range of theological constructs, which are generally brought together
under the term 'Shinto.' The ideological agenda of the modern Shinto
establishment, that we define as 'rooted ... in reverence for, or at least
identification with, the imperial institution,' is but one in a long succession of
such theologies. Already in the fifteenth century, Yoshida Kanetomo identified
three different categories of 'Shinto,' each with a radically different agenda.
This 'establishment view,' which, as demonstrated by the essays of Isomae
jun'ichi, Nitta Hitoshi, and others in this volume, was itself the product of
very specific historical circumstances, imposes on all kami cults an hierarchical
blueprint which categorises all kami-related phenomena (in order of
diminishing importance) as constituting, leading to, or branching off from a
single 'Way of the Kami.' It is as an alternative to this view that we propose a
multiplicity of 'Ways of the Kami,' each grown out of different historical and
social circumstances, and each wIth its~~n -;i-t-~i and theological agenda. Such
an approach promises not -;-r;ryto(;p~ our eyes to aspects ofkaffiicults and
Shinto traditions that have previously been ignored, but also to throw new light
on the rituals, beliefs and ideas of such cults and traditions that have been
studied only through the lens of the above-mentioned notion that they,
ultimately, formed part of a single 'Way of the Kami.'
It is only recently (and largely under the influence of Kuroda's work), that
scholars have begun to look beyond the'establishment view' of Shinto and the
kami. For the most part, moreover, their studies are confined to specialist
journals, and have yet to leave their imprint on the general understanding,
inside Japan and out, of Japanese religions. The aim of this volume is to bring
together in an accessible fashion a number of essays on Shinto and the kami
that explore some of the issues raised above. The essays included in this book
deal with kami and Shinto-related subjects ranging from the beginning of the
historical period (the seventh century), until, roughly, 1945. Regrettably, lack
of space precludes us from doing justice to two important themes: the growth
and development of so-called 'sect Shinto' in pre-war Japan; and the complex
dynamics of Shinto issues in the post-war period. We hope that there will be an
opportunity to address these themes in separate volumes.