A New History of Shinto

John Breen, Mark Teeuwen

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781444357684
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Asian Religions

This accessible guide to the development of Japan's indigenous religion from ancient times to the present day offers an illuminating introduction to the myths, sites and rituals of kami worship, and their role in Shinto's enduring religious identity.

• Offers a unique new approach to Shinto history that combines critical analysis with original research
• Examines key evolutionary moments in the long history of Shinto, including the Meiji Revolution of 1868, and provides the first critical history in English or Japanese of the Hie shrine, one of the most important in all Japan
• Traces the development of various shrines, myths, and rituals through history as uniquely diverse phenomena, exploring how and when they merged into the modern notion of Shinto that exists in Japan today
• Challenges the historic stereotype of Shinto as the unchanging, all-defining core of Japanese culture

Chapter 1

An Alternative Approach to the History of Shinto

In today’s Japan, Shinto has a distinct identity. Shinto is the religion of shrines (jinja, jing

), large and small sanctuaries that are distinguished from Buddhist temples by their characteristic architecture. These shrines, some 100,000 in all, are managed by about 20,000 Shinto priests, who are immediately recognizable from their traditional attire. The shrines accommodate a multitude of deities. While these deities differ from one shrine to another, they clearly belong to the same category (called kami), and they are obviously different from the buddhas and bodhisattvas of Buddhist temples. Similarly, shrines stage a dazzling variety of ceremonies, but it is evident even at first glance that they share a common ritual language.

Still, however clear the contours of modern Shinto may be, in some ways it is also very difficult to pin down. According to official statistics, Shinto is Japan’s largest religion, with more than a hundred million “adherents,” a number that amounts to well over 80 percent of all Japanese. Yet only a small percentage of the populace identify themselves as “Shintoists” in questionnaires conducted by the media or by Shinto organizations. This reflects the fact that while many Japanese participate in shrine events and make use of the ritual services offered by shrines, only very few regard Shinto as their religious identity. Seen through the eyes of the average patron of shrines, Shinto remains a very vague concept. Shrines may be categorized as Shinto and temples as Buddhist, but this distinction is of little consequence to those who make use of their services. It makes sense to distinguish shrines from temples, but with few exceptions it is impossible to differentiate between “Shintoists” and “Buddhists.”

Of course, the fact that Shinto hardly functions as a religious identity does not mean that shrines are taken lightly. As “religious juridical persons” (sh

ky

h

jin) in law, shrines cannot be supported by public funds under Japan’s postwar constitution.¹ They depend for their upkeep on the largess of the inhabitants of their “parish” and the general public. Without a steady stream of income, no shrine can survive; a shrine priest much less so. When a shrine ceases to make itself relevant to the community on which it depends, it will disappear almost instantly. In this perspective, the fact that so many shrines have survived good times and bad over centuries bespeaks a truly astonishing staying power. Ultimately, this remarkable resilience is down to the never- ending efforts of generations of shrine priests, who time and again have succeeded in finding new roles and new sources of income for their shrines, and to the willingness of shrine parishioners and other patrons to make their resources available to them.

Shrines may have a permanent priest, but most do not; such smaller shrines are maintained and run by people in the neighborhood, or share a priest with a number of other shrines. Statistics show that, overall, there is about one priest to every five shrines. There are also a few hundred large and very large shrines: the Ise Shrine, for example, has some 600 personnel, ranging from priests and musicians to office workers. But of course, shrine priests cannot keep a shrine afloat on their own. Equally important is the role played by worshipers’ organizations (s

keikai, h

sankai) and neighborhood associations (ch

naikai), which organize the community’s participation in and funding of shrine events.

How does a shrine work? Shrines are places where kami are believed to reside. The focus of most shrines is the main sanctuary, or kami hall (shinden), usually a simple wooden or concrete building in traditional style. The shrine’s main deities are said to dwell in this building, often in mirrors or other “kami objects” that are permanently hidden from view. In front of the kami hall is a worship hall (haiden), from which the visitor looks up to the sanctuary. Prayers are said in this worship hall. Only priests may approach the sanctuary, and even they seldom enter its inner recesses where the kami is hidden. The area around the two halls is often parklike, and even in an urban environment it tends to look like a small natural forest, or at least it will feature a few trees. Access to the shrine precincts is through a characteristic torii gate. Visitors enter by way of this torii and rinse their hands and mouth at a basin with running water before proceeding to the worship hall. At larger shrines, they will pass by a shrine office (shamusho), where they can ask a priest to perform a ritual or buy kami tablets, amulets, postcards, and a variety of souvenirs. Most will pass the office without a glance, throw a coin into the money box (saisenbako) at the worship hall, clap their hands, and bow their head briefly in prayer before hurrying off once more into the secular world beyond the torii. The most popular opportunity for such a shrine visit is New Year. Some 70 percent of all Japanese visit a shrine in the first days of the New Year (a practice called hatsum

de);² outside this rush-hour period shrines tend to be very quiet places.

Shrines perform three categories of rituals. One is personal prayers for individuals or families. After hatsum

de, which also belongs to this category, the most popular practices are hatsu miyamairi, the first shrine visit of a newborn baby, and shichi go san, a shrine visit to celebrate a child’s third, fifth, or seventh birthday. These rites are observed by some 50 percent of Japanese. On these occasions, a priest will intone a solemn prayer (norito) and dancing maidens called miko will perform in front of the altar. The participants make a symbolic offering (a branch of the evergreen sakaki tree called a tamagushi) and are offered a sip of sacred rice wine (miki), signaling a mutual promise between the kami and the worshiper. Other popular rituals are purification rites for building sites and cars, weddings, prayers for avoiding misfortune in “dangerous years” (yakudoshi), and prayers for success in examinations.

The second category of shrine rituals is of an imperial nature. These rituals are standardized across the land and occur simultaneously at most manned shrines. The most important ones are kinensai (February 17) and niiname-sai (November 23). Both are classical court ceremonies in which the emperor prays for (kinensai) and gives thanks for (niiname-sai) the year’s harvest. As we shall soon see, these rituals only entered the ritual calendars of shrines in the late nineteenth century. Other national rituals have a similar imperial theme: kigensetsu (February 11) celebrates the founding of the nation by the mythical emperor Jinmu, which tradition dates to 660 BC; Meijisetsu (November 3) the birthday of the Meiji emperor; and tench

setsu (December 23) the birthday of the present emperor. These rituals, which do not draw large crowds, symbolize Shinto’s connections with the imperial house.

The third and last category consists of shrine festivals (matsuri). Apart from New Year, festivals are the main occasions on which shrines really come to life. Shrine festivals reflect local traditions and are spread across the year. Large festivals last for many days and give a cultural identity to whole cities, as well as attracting thousands of visitors and tourists. Small festivals are intimate affairs, not unlike neighborhood parties. The most common pattern of a festival is a parade, for which the kami is transferred from the kami hall into a palanquin called a mikoshi. The mikoshi is carried or wheeled through the neighborhood and temporarily installed at various sites where the kami is entertained with dancing, theater performances, wrestling matches, archery contests, and the like. Festivals tend to be run by the local community rather than the shrine priests, who take center-stage only as ritual specialists performing liturgical tasks such as the transfer of the kami to the mikoshi or the recitation of prayers. Most of the festivities take place outside of the shrine and are managed by selected community members. Typical of shrine festivals is that they engage large parts of the community in their proceedings, and that they envelop the community in a carnivalesque atmosphere in which much is allowed and all is forgiven. All in all, some 25 percent of Japanese participate in a local festival of this kind.

Where in all this is “Shinto”? For shrine priests, these three types of rituals are all part of a single tradition. For most participants, however, the coherence in their own ritual behavior does not derive from such categories as Shinto and Buddhism. From their point of view, the New Year shrine visit belongs together with the Buddhist obon festival in August and the eating of Christmas cake in December. All events of this kind form part of a single calendrical cycle of seasonal festivities (nenj

gy

ji) that brightens up the routine of a busy life. For most, “religion” and “faith” have little to do with it.

Conceptualizing Shrine Practice as Shinto

“Shinto” as an overarching construct may have little appeal to the average shrine patron, but it has had a profound influence on the design and operation of shrines. Also, individual shrines are aware of the fact that, without a broader conceptual context, each shrine would be even more vulnerable to social change. Shrines explain their function in society in terms of “Shinto” and market themselves under that flag. Developing Shinto as a concept, then, is of utmost importance to the shrine world as a whole.

In the postwar period, this has been one of the main functions of the National Association of Shrines (Jinja Honch

; hereafter NAS), an umbrella organization working on behalf of some 80,000 member shrines. NAS was founded in 1946, at a time of deep crisis when it was far from obvious that Shinto would survive the demise of the old imperial Japan. All agreed that if Shinto was to be rescued from rapid disintegration, it needed to be reinvented. Yet the direction that Shinto would take after Japan’s catastrophic defeat in the war was far from clear. The choices made by leaders of the shrine world at this crucial juncture reveal much about the position of shrines in society, and about the ambiguities of “Shinto” as a conceptualization of shrine practices.

In the turmoil immediately after Japan’s capitulation, the shrine world had good reason to fear for its future. Since 1868 shrine ritual had been a matter of political importance to the Japanese state, and especially from around 1900 onwards Shinto had occupied a secure place at the center of Japan’s national identity. The allied powers that occupied Japan in September 1945 saw Shinto as the ideological foundation of Japanese “emperor worship” and aggressive expansionism. They moved quickly to remove its influence from the public sphere by drastic measures. In the face of this threat, shrines fought an uphill battle on all fronts. Budgets were nonexistent, and many of the leaders of the old Shinto establishment were being purged from public life. Nor was it easy to find sympathy among the general public. In the face of Japan’s disastrous collapse, most Japanese felt a profound aversion to the propaganda that they had been bombarded with for over a decade, and shrines suffered for their long-standing association with that propaganda. Shinto was utterly out of synch with the times and many could not envision its survival in the new, democratic Japan of the future. The Occupation authorities were in fact convinced that if they left it alone, Shinto would disappear...