Shinto

A Short History

Nobutaka Inoue, Endo Jun, Mori Mizue, Ito Satoshi, John Breen, Mark Teeuwen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9780415319133
• eBook ISBN: 9781134384617
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

Shinto - A Short History provides an introductory outline of the historical development of Shinto from the ancient period of Japanese history until the present day.
Shinto does not offer a readily identifiable set of teachings, rituals or beliefs; individual shrines and kami deities have led their own lives, not within the confines of a narrowly defined Shinto, but rather as participants in a religious field that included Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian and folk elements. Thus, this book approaches Shinto as a series of historical 'religious systems' rather than attempting to identify a timeless 'Shinto essence'.
This history focuses on three aspects of Shinto practice: the people involved in shrine worship, the institutional networks that ensured continuity, and teachings and rituals. By following the interplay between these aspects in different periods, a pattern of continuity and discontinuity is revealed that challenges received understandings of the history of Shinto.
This book does not presuppose prior knowledge of Japanese religion, and is easily accessible for those new to the subject.

1
ANCIENT AND CLASSICAL JAPAN
The dawn of Shinto

Mori Mizue

Where did Shinto come from? Must we look for the origins of Shinto in the Jōmon period (c.12,000–400 BCE), or did its traditions arise in the subsequent Yayoi period (c.400 BCE–300 CE)? Opinions on this question are still divided. The least we can say is that excavations of ritual sites from the Yayoi period leave little doubt that during this period, people believed in, and worshipped, spiritual powers that controlled the weather and the crops. These sites bespeak the existence at this early date of what we may call kami worship.

With the arrival of wet rice cultivation from the Asian continent, kami worship became gradually more systematised. As the scale of rice cultivation increased, the necessity arose for large groups of people to cooperate in a more systematic way. At the same time, clan chiefs took control over water resources and agricultural techniques, and increased their own authority by linking these to specific kami. As indicated already by the twin meanings of the Japanese word matsurigoto – ‘secular rule’ and ‘ritual’ – these chiefs maintained order within their communities through the performance of kami rituals.

In the late fourth century, the end of the Yayoi period was signalled by the rise of the Yamato court to a position of dominance over other clans. By the latter half of the fifth century, the Yamato chief had attained the position of the country’s ‘Great King’. The kings of the Yamato court had originally worshipped the kami of the area around Mount Miwa, but this highly localised cult was gradually substituted with rituals focusing on military kami, and worship of a single Sun Deity. While recognising the ritual prerogatives of other clans, the Yamato court moved to force them into a larger political order; in terms of ritual, this was achieved by rearranging the myths of other clans around the genealogy of the royal lineage. Furthermore, the late seventh century saw the importation of a system of Chinese law, known in Japan as ritsuryō. This signalled the beginning of the classical period. Under this legal system, rule over the country was centralised to an unprecedented degree, leading also to a centralisation of kami ritual under a special government office, the ‘Ministry of Kami Affairs’ (Jingikan). It is at this point that, for the first time, we can speak of ‘Shinto’ as a religious system that is linked directly (if remotely) to the Shinto of today.

The main task of the Ministry of Kami Affairs was to perform rituals for all the kami in the land. The most important shrines of the different regions were given a national status and rank, and became so-called ‘official shrines’ (kansha). At the basis of this system of official kami ritual lay the idea that the sovereignty of the emperor (tennō) is derived from his descent from the Sun-Deity Amaterasu Ōmikami. This idea was laid down in mythological form in two National Histories, Kojiki (712) and Nihon shoki (720). Most poignant in this respect are myths (recorded as history in these National Histories) that recount how Amaterasu granted her grandson, Ninigi, everlasting sovereignty over Japan; how Ninigi descended from Amaterasu’s dwelling place, the Plain of High Heaven, to the island of Kyushu; and how Ninigi’s descendant, Jinmu, subjugated other clans, established his court in Yamato, and became the first human to ascend to the imperial throne.

The kami rituals carried out by the court during the ritsuryō period functioned on the premise that local clan traditions continued. However, kami worship could not remain unaffected by the spread of the Chinese bureaucratic and patrilineal values that lay behind the ritsuryō legal system. Whereas the Japanese clan system had contained matrilineal as well as patrilineal elements, the new political environment soon rendered them exclusively patrilineal. This gave rise to the development of so-called ujigami (‘clan deity’) cults. Changes also occurred on the village level where, during this period, the first permanent shrine buildings appeared. This chapter will trace the emergence of Shinto as a religious system of the state, by considering all of these developments and their relationship with the period’s political trends.

Ritual sites and kami cults

The civilisation of the Jōmon period, which began with the introduction of pottery in c.12,000 BCE, was almost exclusively based on hunting and gathering. In contrast, Yayoi period civilisation revolved around wet rice cultivation, which was adopted from the Asian continent in the fourth century BCE and spread throughout Japan with remarkable speed during the subsequent century. Jōmon and Yayoi culture have long been regarded as two contrasting strains that have since defined the character of Japanese culture. The origins of Shinto are often traced back to kami beliefs that existed during the later Yayoi period or the subsequent period of burial mounds (the Kofun period, c.300–700). Many writers have linked Shinto’s origins to community rituals around the agricultural calendar of rice growing from these periods.¹

Considering the facts that rituals around rice growing have dominated the ritual calendar of shrines throughout history, and that the emperor has always functioned as a ritual king with a special concern for the rice crop, it is perhaps not unreasonable to look for the roots of Shinto in these periods. At the same time, it is worth noting that recent archaeological finds have led to a revision of our understanding of the Jōmon period. Recently, it has become clear that there must have been as much, if not more, continuity than contrast between this period and the subsequent Yayoi period and, as a result, the animism of the Jōmon period will also have to be taken into account as a possible ancestor of Shinto. Even so, there are indications of a clear break in religious practice between the Jōmon and Yayoi periods. Jōmon period villages were constructed in a circle around a central square or cemetery, and rituals for the dead must have performed an important role in community life. In contrast, Yayoi period ritual sites are never connected to graves. Here, the dead were not the object of ritual practice, but were avoided and tabooed, and rather than on the dead, rituals focused on spirits associated with the forces of nature.

All in all, it appears quite clear that in broad terms, a religious system that we may call Shinto first emerged when kami beliefs were systematised under the influence of Yayoi period rituals relating to the growing of rice. However, rice cultivation spread to all areas of Japan only gradually, and in different regions there will have existed a wide variety of kami beliefs and rituals. It is by no means possible to explain the origins and aims of all kami cults with reference to rice-growing rituals alone. It would certainly be an oversimplification to state that the Japanese islands first gave rise to kami cults of different types, which grew and developed naturally within local communities, and then gave birth to Shinto in some kind of natural progression. Rather, it was the Yamato court which, under the influence of Chinese notions of kingship, consciously chose sun worship as the linchpin of its ritual activities. This the Yamato court tied in with the concept of ‘Heavenly Deities’ (ama-tsu-kami), a group of superior kami among whom the Sun Goddess Amaterasu was the most prominent, and who reigned over the ‘Earthly Deities’ (kuni-tsu-kami) and their descendants from their heavenly domain. It was this consciously and deliberately constructed cult that provided the impetus leading to the emergence of Shinto as a religious system.

This leaves us with the question of what can be known about kami cults before their systematisation by the Yamato court. The written sources we possess about early Shinto all date from the period after the establishment of the Yamato court, and most were written down when the Yamato court had already embarked upon the formation of a centralised state based on ritsuryō law. For this reason, these sources deal almost exclusively with Shinto state ritual. This renders it very difficult to reconstruct concrete instances of kami cults before the formation of the state cult, or even instances of local kami rites away from the court during and after the formation of this cult. These limitations leave only the archaeological record as a reliable source of information on early kami cults.

Among finds from the Yayoi and Kofun periods are many ritual sites, usually at some remove from settlements, in mountains or valleys, along streams or on islands, which focus on large rocks (iwasaka or shiki). At some of these sites, fetishes carved from wood, precious objects such as jewels, and containers for food have been found, and they are generally understood to have been places of kami worship. It appears that at such iwasaka sites, but also at springs, waterfalls, river banks, and by large trees, mostly in places that were important for the water supply of farming communities, sacred spaces were created and marked off, kami were temporarily invited to descend and attend, and rites relating to the agricultural calendar were performed. For the purpose of such rites, objects known as yorishiro were placed in the sacred space to which the kami were invited to descend. At this stage, the kami were imagined as invisible spirits, without permanent dwelling places.

These yorishiro could be stones (called iwasaka), or trees or branches (himorogi); it appears that animals such as snakes, birds, boar or deer could also serve as yorishiro. Few of such natural yorishiro have come down to us, but it would seem that the most common type was an evergreen tree or branch of a pillar-like appearance, placed directly on the ground. In some cases, geological features such as waterfalls, streams, hills or islands served as objects of worship. In particular, hills that were thought to influence the weather, or that were striking in appearance were regarded as sacred dwelling places of kami and functioned as ritual sites.² Low, wooded, conical hills rising from the plains were often referred to as ‘kami-inhabited mountains’ (mimuro-yama or kannabi-yama), but ritual sites have also been found on more rugged mountains. The Ōmiwa, Suwa, and a few other shrines have preserved the practice of worshipping a mountain as a kami site to this day: lacking a kami hall, they consist simply of a worshipping hall built before a kami hill (shintaizan). Rites on kami hills took place in a demarcated sacred area into which entry for non-ritual purposes was forbidden; but it appears that such hills were also intensively used for collecting firewood and foodstuffs, and played an important role in everyday village life.

The rapid spread of rice cultivation through most of Japan occasioned the emergence of a new ruling class, which controlled and managed the skills and the excess produce of village communities. In ritual terms, this development is reflected in the performance of communal agricultural rites at the granaries where the rice crops and seeds were stored (raised-floor structures known as kura), and at the dwellings of local chiefs (miya or yake, yakata).

Kura were regarded as dwelling places of the spirits of the rice. The villagers worshipped these spirits in the forecourts of kura or at specially constructed himorogi, where the spirits were treated with lavish offerings. In some cases, a special building for the preparation of such offerings (known as a yashiro) would also have been put up. Such kura later developed into permanent raised-floor shrines; the most famous shrine buildings of this type, known as shinmei-zukuri, are the shrines of Ise.

Another type of shrine building developed from the dwellings of local chiefs, or miya. Such dwellings were set apart from the other village houses on the fringe of the village area. It appears that a section of the main house was set aside for the performance of rites. The most famous modern shrine that belongs to this type, known as taisha-zukuri, is the Izumo shrine. While the main entrance to shinmei-zukuri shrine buildings is placed in the long wall of the structure, taisha-zukuri shrines have their main entrance in a short wall. Both have raised floors, built on pillars set in holes dug in the ground.

The worship of kami in permanent structures that they were believed to inhabit in a human-like fashion led to their personalisation and humanisation, and soon, village kami acquired human traits. Moreover, those who were directly involved in the rites performed in the enclosed spaces of permanent shrines were thought to have a special relationship with the kami, and thus came to be seen as kami-like figures themselves, clearly separated from other members of the village community. It is thought that village chiefs may have performed a shaman-like role in village ritual.

Yayoi period sites have produced large numbers of ornate bell-shaped bronze objects, known as dōtaku, as well as bronze weapons and mirrors. It is believed that these metal objects may have been used to call up kami spirits for agricultural rituals. It is possible that the sounds produced by striking such objects, or their bright and shiny surface, may have inspired a belief that they had special properties, and caused them to be selected for such a role. On dōtaku, as well as on the walls of the inner chambers of the burial mounds of the Kofun period, depictions of birds have been found, together with agricultural scenes, the sun and the moon, or boats; there are also finds of bird figures carved from wood. These pictures and figures seem to reflect a belief that birds are sacred creatures, who fly to and fro between this world and another world, contributing to the movements of the sun, and carrying the spirits of the rice. This belief displays certain similarities with myths recounting the ‘shooting of suns’. Such myths are known from a large area, stretching from southern China to Korea, that coincides with the route along which rice cultivation spread. An early account of them can be found in the Chinese Huainanzi (second century BCE), which tells how at some time in the distant past, the ten suns which at normal times took turns to illuminate the world in a ten-day cycle appeared all at the same time, causing a disastrous drought. These suns were carried along the heavens by birds, and the crisis was overcome when a hero shot nine of the ten suns. Rites using bird figures and shamanism can be found throughout this area, suggesting that shamans were expected...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contributors
• Translators’ Introduction
• Introduction: What Is Shinto?
• 1. Ancient and Classical Japan: The Dawn of Shinto
• 2. The Medieval Period: The Kami Merge With Buddhism
• 3. The Early Modern Period: In Search of a Shinto Identity
• 4. The Modern Age: Shinto Confronts Modernity
• Selected Reading