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The Vitality of the Shinto Faith in Japan
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12489 |
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Section : |
Culture
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7 / 1987 |
3,509 Words |
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Young Oon Kim
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As the indigenous faith of Japan, Shinto means the Tao of the Kami, the road to the gods. At first and for many subsequent centuries, it was an animistic and polytheistic faith which combined shamanistic practices with the rites of a primitive agricultural fertility cult. Reminders of this early religion can still be found in the Ise worship of the Sun Goddess, pilgrimages up the sacred Mt. Fuji, rice planting and harvesting ceremonies, veneration of holy trees, the doll festival on March 3 and boys' festival on May 5 every year. The chief characteristic of a Shinto shrine is the torii, a gate made of two horizontal beams supported by two pillars, at the entrance to the palace of the Kami, as each place of worship is called.
A new period opened with the arrival of Buddhism. Beginning in the sixth century A.D. and lasting more than a millennium, Japan honored Mahayana Buddhism as the state faith. Buddhist priests took over Shinto shrines and reinterpreted Shinto beliefs in accordance with Buddhist metaphysics. However, tolerant Buddhism allowed only a few changes in Shinto rites and carefully preserved the Shinto shrines. Shintoists attempted to reconcile themselves to the new situation by claiming that Buddha taught the Way of the Kami and his fourfold truth came as a revelation from the Sun Goddess.
This Buddhist era ended when Japan opened her doors to the West and pure Shinto was revived as the basis for proud, self-assertive nationalism. Kamo Mabuchi (d. 1769), Motoori Norinaga (d. 1801), and Hirata Atsutane (d. 1843) promoted the recovery of Japan's heritage and a return to her original glory. Before, in their opinion, it had been "corrupted" by Chinese and Indian notions. State Shinto henceforth became the ideological support for Japan's "immanental theocracy," as it was called.
Apologists for State Shinto were primarily interested in promulgating love for country, reverence for the emperor, filial piety, and loyalty to the government to reinforce the concept of a strong centralized state. When they were criticized by Christians for denying men religious freedom, they replied that the compulsory rites of State Shinto were not anything more than patriotic exercises. By reducing Shinto in such a fashion, the way was opened for the birth of more enthusiastic Shinto sects which had no formal connection with the government but met popular need for a warm and vital religious life. Thirteen such sects sprang up and prospered under the guidance of charismatic founders, women as well as men (for example, Omoto-kyo was founded on divine oracles received by a peasant shamaness Deguchi Nao [d. 1918], whose son-in-law Deguchi Onisaburo [d. 1948] was believed to be the messiah-Maitreya).
When Japan was defeated in World War II, the Allied occupation authorities abolished State Shinto and forced the emperor to renounce his claim to divinity. This left the ancient shrine Shinto and newer sectarian Shinto. To these should be added several of the New Religions which grew out of Shinto. Tenrikyo is an example of sectarian Shinto and PL Kyodan (the Religion of Perfect Liberty) is an illustration of a new religion based on Shinto to some degree. In post-war Japan, Shinto found itself with a loss of government revenue, shortage of clergy, and lack of a modern systematic theology. Some said that the historic shrines ceased to have any religious meaning and were mere cultural monuments which should be kept up by the government.
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