A Yayoi period dotaku bell; these probably played a key role in kami rites at the time.[1]

Earhart commented that Shinto ultimately "emerged from the beliefs and practices of prehistoric Japan",[2] although Kitagawa noted that it was questionable whether prehistoric Japanese religions could be accurately termed "early Shinto".[3] It was the Yayoi period of Japanese prehistory which first left traces of material and iconography prefiguring that later included in Shinto.[4] Kami were worshipped at various landscape features during this period; at this point, their worship consisted largely of beseeching and placating them, with little evidence that they were viewed as compassionate entities.[1] Archaeological evidence suggests that dotaku bronze bells, bronze weapons, and metal mirrors played an important role in kami-based ritual during the Yayoi period.[5]

In this early period, Japan was not a unified state; by the Kofun period it was divided among Uji (clans), each with their own tutelary kami, the ujigami.[6] Korean migration during the Kofun period brought Confucianism and Buddhism to Japan.[7] Buddhism had a particular impact on the kami cults.[8] Migrant groups and Japanese who increasingly aligned with these foreign influences built Buddhist temples in various parts of the Japanese islands.[8] Several rival clans who were more hostile to these foreign influences began adapting the shrines of their kami to more closely resemble the new Buddhist structures.[8] In the late 5th century, the Yamato clan leader Yūryaku declared himself daiō ("great king") and established hegemony over much of Japan.[9] From the early 6th century CE, the style of ritual favored by the Yamato began spreading to other kami shrines around Japan as the Yamato extended their territorial influence.[10] Buddhism was also growing. According to the Nihon Shoki, in 587 Emperor Yōmei converted to Buddhism and under his sponsorship Buddhism spread.[11]

In the mid-7th century, a legal code called Ritsuryō was adopted to establish a Chinese-style centralised government.[12] As part of this, the Jingikan ("Council of Kami") was created to conduct rites of state and coordinate provincial ritual with that in the capital.[13] This was done according to a code of kami law called the Jingiryō,[13] itself modelled on the Chinese Book of Rites.[14] The Jingikan was located in the palace precincts and maintained a register of shrines and priests.[15] An annual calendar of state rites were introduced to help unify Japan through kami worship.[16] These legally mandated rites were outlined in the Yōrō Code of 718,[14] and expanded in the Jogan Gishiki of circa 872 and the Engi Shiki of 927.[14] Under the Jingikan, some shrines were designated as kansha ("official shrines") and given specific privileges and responsibilities.[17] Hardacre saw the Jingikan as "the institutional origin of Shinto".[16]

 

A page from the 14th-century Shinpukuji manuscript of the Kojiki, itself written in the 8th century

In the early 8th century, the Emperor Tenmu commissioned a compilation of the legends and genealogies of Japan's clans, resulting in the completion of the Kojiki in 712. Designed to legitimate the ruling dynasty, this text created a fixed version of various stories previously circulating in oral tradition.[18] The Kojiki omits any reference to Buddhism,[19] in part because it sought to ignore foreign influences and emphasise a narrative stressing indigenous elements of Japanese culture.[20] Several years later, the Nihon shoki was written. Unlike the Kojiki, this made various references to Buddhism,[19] and was aimed at a foreign audience.[21] Both of these texts sought to establish the imperial clan's descent from the sun kami Amaterasu,[19] although there were many differences in the cosmogonic narrative they provided.[22] Quickly, the Nihon shoki eclipsed the Kojiki in terms of its influence.[21] Other texts written at this time also drew on oral traditions regarding the kami. The Sendari kuji hongi for example was probably composed by the Mononobe clan while the Kogoshui was probably put together for the Imbe clan, and in both cases they were designed to highlight the divine origins of these respective lineages.[23] A government order in 713 called on each region to produce fudoki, records of local geography, products, and stories, with the latter revealing more traditions about the kami which were present at this time.[24]

From the 8th century, kami worship and Buddhism were thoroughly intertwined in Japanese society.[25] While the emperor and court performed Buddhist rites, they also performed others to honor the kami.[26] Tenmu for example appointed a virginal imperial princess to serve as the saiō, a form of priestess, at the Ise Shrine on his behalf, a tradition continued by subsequent emperors.[27] From the 8th century onward up until the Meiji era, the kami were incorporated into a Buddhist cosmology in various ways.[28] One view is that the kami realised that like all other life-forms, they too were trapped in the cycle of samsara (rebirth) and that to escape this they had to follow Buddhist teachings.[28] Alternative approaches viewed the kami as benevolent entities who protected Buddhism, or that the kami were themselves Buddhas, or beings who had achieved enlightenment. In this, they could be either hongaku, the pure spirits of the Buddhas, or honji suijaku, transformations of the Buddhas in their attempt to help all sentient beings.[28]

This period hosted many changes to the country, government, and religion. The capital is moved again to Heijō-kyō (modern-day Nara), in AD 710 by Empress Genmei due to the death of the emperor. This practice was necessary due to the Shinto belief in the impurity of death and the need to avoid this pollution. However, this practice of moving the capital due to "death impurity" is then abolished by the Taihō Code and rise in Buddhist influence.[29] The establishment of the imperial city in partnership with Taihō Code is important to Shinto as the office of the Shinto rites becomes more powerful in assimilating local clan shrines into the imperial fold. New shrines are built and assimilated each time the city is moved. All of the grand shrines are regulated under Taihō and are required to account for incomes, priests, and practices due to their national contributions.[29]

 

The Chōsen Jingū in Seoul, Korea, established during the Japanese occupation of the peninsula

Breen and Teeuwen characterise the period between 1868 and 1915, during the Meiji era, as being the "formative years" of modern Shinto.[30] It is in this period that various scholars have argued that Shinto was essentially "invented".[30] Fridell argues that scholars call the period from 1868 to 1945 the "State Shinto period" because, "during these decades, Shinto elements came under a great deal of overt state influence and control as the Japanese government systematically utilized shrine worship as a major force for mobilizing imperial loyalties on behalf of modern nation-building."[31] However, the government had already been treating shrines as an extension of government before Meiji; see for example the Tenpō Reforms. Moreover, according to the scholar Jason Ānanda Josephson, It is inaccurate to describe shrines as constituting a "state religion" or a "theocracy" during this period since they had neither organization, nor doctrine, and were uninterested in conversion.[32]

The Meiji Restoration of 1868 was fuelled by a renewal of Confucian ethics and imperial patriotism among Japan's ruling class.[33] Among these reformers, Buddhism was seen as a corrupting influence that had undermined what they envisioned as Japan's original purity and greatness.[33] They wanted to place a renewed emphasis on kami worship as an indigenous form of ritual, an attitude that was also fuelled by anxieties about Western expansionism and fear that Christianity would take hold in Japan.[33]

In 1868, all shrine priests were placed under the authority of the new Jingikan, or Council of Kami Affairs.[34] A project of forcibly separating kami worship from Buddhism was implemented, with Buddhist monks, deities, buildings, and rituals banned from kami shrines.[33] Much Buddhist material was destroyed.[33] In 1871, a new hierarchy of shrines was introduced, with imperial and national shrines at the top.[35] Hereditary priesthoods were abolished and a new state-sanctioned system for appointing priests was introduced.[36] In 1872, the Jingikan was replaced with the Kyobusho, or Ministry of Edification.[37] This coordinated a campaign whereby kyodoshoku ("national evangelists") were sent through the country to promote Japan's "Great Teaching," which included respect for the kami and obedience to the emperor.[37] This campaign was discontinued in 1884.[37] In 1906, thousands of village shrines were merged so that most small communities had only a single shrine, where rites in honor of the emperor could be held.[38] Shinto effectively became the state cult, one promoted with growing zeal in the build-up to the Second World War.[38]

In 1882, the Meiji government designated 13 religious movements that were neither Buddhist nor Christian to be forms of "Sect Shinto".[39] The number and name of the sects given this formal designation varied;[40] often they merged ideas with Shinto from Buddhism, Christian, Confucian, Daoist, and Western esoteric traditions.[41] In the Meiji period, many local traditions died out and were replaced by nationally standardised practices encouraged from Tokyo.[42]

 

The headquarters of the Association of Shinto Shrines in Shibuya, Tokyo.

During the U.S. occupation, a new Japanese constitution was drawn up. This enshrined freedom of religion and separated religion from the state, a measure designed to eradicate State Shinto.[43] The emperor declared that he was not a kami;[44] Shinto rituals performed by the imperial family became their own private affair.[45] This disestablishment ended government subsidies to shrines and gave them renewed freedom to organise their own affairs.[44] In 1946 many shrines formed a voluntary organisation, the Association of Shinto Shrines (Jinja Honchō).[46] In 1956 the association issued a creedal statement, the keishin seikatsu no kōryō ("general characteristics of a life lived in reverence of the kami"), to summarise what they regarded as Shinto's principles.[47] By the late 1990s around 80% of Japan's Shinto shrines were part of this association.[48]

In the post-war decades, many Japanese blamed Shinto for encouraging the militarism which had led to defeat and occupation.[44] Others remained nostalgic for State Shinto,[49] and concerns were repeatedly expressed that sectors of Japanese society were conspiring to restore it.[50] Various legal debates revolved around the involvement of public officials in Shinto.[51] In 1965, for instance, the city of Tsu, Mie Prefecture paid four Shinto priests to purify the site where the municipal athletic hall was to be built. Critics brought the case to court, claiming it contravened the constitutional separation of religion and state; in 1971 the high court ruled that the city administration's act had been unconstitutional, although this was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1977.[52]

During the post-war period, Shinto themes often blended into Japanese new religious movements.[53] Of the Sect Shinto groups, Tenrikyo was probably the most successful,[49] although in 1970 it repudiated its Shinto identity.[54] Shinto perspectives also influenced popular culture. The film director Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli for instance acknowledged Shinto influences on his films such as Spirited Away.[55] Shinto also spread abroad through both emigration and conversion by non-Japanese.[56] The Tsubaki Grand Shrine in Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, was the first to establish a branch abroad: the Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America, initially located in California and then moved to Granite Falls, Washington.[57]

During the 20th century, most academic research on Shinto was conducted by Shinto theologians, often priests,[58] bringing accusations that it often blurred theology with historical analysis.[59] From the 1980s onward, there was a renewed academic interest in Shinto both in Japan and abroad.[60]