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Shinto (Way of the Gods) is the term used to refer to an assortment of
beliefs and practices indigenous to Japan that predate the arrival of
Buddhism but that have in turn been influenced by it. The Shinto worldview
is of a pantheistic universe of kami, spirits or gods with varying degrees
of power.
Although each person is expected to continue existence as a kami after
death, Shinto is concerned with this world rather than with the afterlife.
This world contains defiling substances, and Shinto ritual often involves
mental and physical purification of a person who has come into contact
with a pollutant, such as death. Water or salt commonly serve as purifying
agents. Some kami are guardian deities for villages, and thus they
symbolize the unity of the human community as well as mediating in its
relationship with the natural and supernatural worlds.
Japanese legends describe the activities and personalities of the kami.
The most well-known legends describe the creation of the human world and
trace the origins of the Japanese imperial family to the gods. The latter legend formed the basis of the wide
acceptance of the concept of the emperor's divine descent in pre-1940s
Japan.
In the fifth and sixth centuries, Shinto came under the influence of
Chinese Confucianism and Buddhism. From the former, it borrowed the
veneration of ancestors, and from the latter it adopted philosophical
ideas and religious rites. Because of the popularity of things Chinese and
the ethical and philosophical attraction of Buddhism for the court and the
imperial family, Shinto became somewhat less influential than Buddhism for
more than a millennium. Many people, however, were adherents to both
systems of belief. By the seventeenth century, Shinto began to emerge from
Buddhism's shadow through the influence of neo-Confucian rationalism.
The emerging nationalism of the late Tokugawa period combined with the
political needs of the Meiji Restoration (1868) oligarchs to reform Shinto
into a state religion, and it flourished as such until 1945 under
government patronage. Japan's defeat in World War II and the emperor's
denial of his divinity brought an end to State Shinto. Sometimes considered synonymous with State Shinto
before 1945 was Shrine Shinto (Jinja Shinto), but after the war most
Shinto traditions were observed in the home rather than in shrines. Most
shrines, which had previously benefited from state sponsorship, were
organized into the Association of Shinto Shrines after 1946. Sect Shinto (Kyoha
Shinto) consists of more than eighty private religious sects, which
conduct services in houses of worship or lecture halls rather than in
shrines.
In 1991 there were nearly 80,000 Shinto shrines and 93,000 clergy in
Japan. After World War II, the requirement of membership in a shrine
parish was revoked, but local shrines still serve as focal points for
community identity for many Japanese, and occasional informal or ritual
visits are common. Nearly 95 million Japanese citizens profess adherence
to some form of Shinto. Some of the Sect Shinto groups are considered new
religions.
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