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Shinto in the Ancient Period

Helen Hardacre

in Shinto

Discusses Shinto’s “prehistory,” the mixture of continental influences in its formation and early concepts of sovereignty. Through the court’s adoption of Buddhism, a corpus of Kami ritual understood ... More

Discusses Shinto’s “prehistory,” the mixture of continental influences in its formation and early concepts of sovereignty. Through the court’s adoption of Buddhism, a corpus of Kami ritual understood as “indigenous” was embodied in its own code of law and a branch of government, the Ministry of Divinities (Jingikan), placed in charge of it, giving Kami ritual a “public” status. I argue that these linked institutional developments represent the beginning of Shinto.Less

Coda

Bernard Faure

in The Fluid Pantheon: Gods of Medieval Japan, Volume 1

Japanese gods are segments of a heterogeneous network composed of myths and rituals, but also of human and divine bodies, objects, institutions, techniques, images, and feelings. Medieval Japanese ... More

Japanese gods are segments of a heterogeneous network composed of myths and rituals, but also of human and divine bodies, objects, institutions, techniques, images, and feelings. Medieval Japanese gods were enmeshed in a tangle of relationships, they did not so much exist as they occurred. In spite of our fixation with stable iconography, they were identified not by attributes or features but by their trajectories, their transformations, their ever-changing stories, the ebb and flow of their efficacy. They constantly overflowed any systematic attempt to hold them accountable. In our attempts to unravel that tangle, that dense interweaving of rituals and stories and the (un)like, we can no longer simply pigeonhole them into taxonomies and hierarchies. The medieval Japanese pantheon was a fluid pantheon, a pantheon in constant flux.Less

Prologue

Bernard Faure

in Protectors and Predators: Gods of Medieval Japan, Volume 2

The Japanese Middle Ages is often perceived as the heyday of the honjui suijaku model of esoteric Buddhism, a model in which Indian buddhas are paired with Japanese kami. According to that model, all ... More

The Japanese Middle Ages is often perceived as the heyday of the honjui suijaku model of esoteric Buddhism, a model in which Indian buddhas are paired with Japanese kami. According to that model, all Japanese gods are “traces” (suijaku) or manifestations of Indian buddhas and bodhisattvas, who constitute their “original ground” (honji). Yet something occurred in that period that considerably affected the model’s operation: at all levels of the esoteric pantheon, certain deities emerged that were neither buddhas nor kami. Because of their obscure origins, these deities were either rejected or domesticated by Buddhist and Shintō orthodoxies. Yet they constitute the living core of medieval Japanese religion.Less

Coda

Bernard Faure

in Protectors and Predators: Gods of Medieval Japan, Volume 2

This examination of the medieval Japanese pantheon leads to questioning one of its traditional organizing principles, namely, the two-tiered structure of the honji suijaku (essence-traces) theory. ... More

This examination of the medieval Japanese pantheon leads to questioning one of its traditional organizing principles, namely, the two-tiered structure of the honji suijaku (essence-traces) theory. The habitual thesis is that this theory allowed Buddhists to assimilate the “autochthonous” Japanese pantheon. This model has been taken at face value by generations of scholars. However, it fails to explain the role played by most deities (buddhas and kami among others) in medieval Japanese religion. The brocade of medieval Japanese Buddhism was made of many more strands than the simplistic distinction between Buddhism and Shinto would suggest.Less

The Tale of Kazan

G. G. Rowley

in An Imperial Concubine's Tale: Scandal, Shipwreck, and Salvation in Seventeenth-Century Japan

This chapter examines one contemporary account of the dragon-scale scandal: The Tale of Kazan. First printed in 1959, The Tale of Kazan is a novelette named after its hero, Kasannoin Tadanaga, one of ... More

This chapter examines one contemporary account of the dragon-scale scandal: The Tale of Kazan. First printed in 1959, The Tale of Kazan is a novelette named after its hero, Kasannoin Tadanaga, one of the courtiers involved. Scholars believe that the text was composed at some point between the abdication of Emperor GoYōzei in 1611 and the middle of the seventeenth century. The writer used the real names of the guilty, as well as those of the great and the good: Nakanoin Nakako, the shogunal deputy Itakura Iga-no-Kami, and the retired shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu appear in character. The Tale of Kazan recounts the events of the scandal, from the meeting of the young courtiers at the home of the Ōinomikado Colonel to the imperial concubines’ exile to Sagami. It also looks at the death of Kaneyasu Bingo-no-Kami Yoritsugu and the ascendance of a new emperor to the throne.Less

Liturgies

Herman Ooms

in Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan: The Tenmu Dynasty, 650-800

This chapter examines the liturgical ceremonies of the new state assembled by Tenmu and Jitō. The Law Codes stipulated a yearly round of ritual events, most of them to secure the ripening of crops ... More

This chapter examines the liturgical ceremonies of the new state assembled by Tenmu and Jitō. The Law Codes stipulated a yearly round of ritual events, most of them to secure the ripening of crops and a bountiful harvest. The format for the principal celebrations required that four times a year, hundreds of representatives from designated local shrines assemble at the capital, a number that grew to two and three thousand early in the eighth century. These shrine officiants returned home with oblations for their local kami (spirits or gods). Ultimately, these regular celebratory reunions implemented the reality of a dynamic centralized rulership and spread consciousness of it throughout the land by word of mouth.Less

Shinto and Native Studies

James W. Heisig, Thomas P. Kasulis, and John C. Maraldo (eds)

in Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook

This section provides an overview of Shinto and Native Studies. Native Studies is a movement that emerged from a series of philosophical reflections and analyses based on four elements of ancient ... More

This section provides an overview of Shinto and Native Studies. Native Studies is a movement that emerged from a series of philosophical reflections and analyses based on four elements of ancient Japanese culture: kami worship; the valorization of the ancient Japanese language in the writing and appreciation of waka poetry; the early mytho-historical chronicles of the Japanese court; and the Japanese imperial lineage. This section begins with a discussion of the history of Shinto and Native Studies in Japan before presenting translations of a variety of texts by Japanese philosophers, including Kamo no Mabuchi, Motoori Norinaga, Fujitani Mitsue, Hirata Atsutane, Ōkuni Takamasa, Orikuchi Shinobu, and Ueda Kenji.Less

Origami, the Silence of Self, and the Spirit of Vulnerability

Brett J. Esaki

in Enfolding Silence: The Transformation of Japanese American Religion and Art under Oppression

This chapter examines the history of origami, notably streams that divided in early twentieth-century Japan, Europe, and the United States; the art of Linda Mihara; and the silence of self that ... More

This chapter examines the history of origami, notably streams that divided in early twentieth-century Japan, Europe, and the United States; the art of Linda Mihara; and the silence of self that employs indigenous interconnectivity to negotiate psychic bifurcation. The silence of self, illustrated with sign language notation, hybridizes the American independent self of integrity and the Japanese interdependent self of intimacy, a dichotomy portrayed in psychology and religious studies. The history of origami details its transformation in Japanese culture and European and American education, notably in the tradition of Friedrich Froebel. Explications of Linda Mihara's art reveal the cultural negotiation of Japanese American women as the "nice girl" and the preservation of a Japanese American conception of kami (Shinto spirits). These insights are brought together through psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott's potential space, leading to a model of development for a non-binary or polytheistic self that can sustain multiple cultures.Less

Introduction

Helen Hardacre

in Shinto

The introduction sets out the terms of the argument and why it matters; it presents the rationale for a new study of Shinto’s history and an overview of the manuscript.

The Esotericization of Medieval Shinto

Helen Hardacre

in Shinto

Examines the pervasive influence of Buddhist esotericism. Premised on the ultimate identity of Kami and Buddhist divinities, esotericism neutralized Shinto’s claims to represent the indigenous. The ... More

Examines the pervasive influence of Buddhist esotericism. Premised on the ultimate identity of Kami and Buddhist divinities, esotericism neutralized Shinto’s claims to represent the indigenous. The Great Purification Prayer came to be used in shortened form for all manner of private devotional purposes. Warrior oaths show that the Kami were increasingly perceived as requiring people to conform to a moral code. Shugendō, the cult of sacred mountains, introduced myriad ceremonies for mountain deities, who came to be roughly classed with the Kami, contributing to the ongoing diversification of the pantheon. In the late thirteenth century, when the Mongol invasions threatened to destroy Japan entirely, typhoons called Kamikaze, “divine winds,” diverted them. The popular sense that the Kami had saved Japan greatly strengthened ideas of Japan as a divine land (shinkoku), propagated by Kitabatake Chikafusa (1293–1354), among others.Less

Medieval Shinto and the Arts

Helen Hardacre

in Shinto

Examines Shinto art, literature, dance-drama, and aspects of architecture to uncover medieval Shinto’s devotional patterns. New architectural spaces were created for encountering “foreign” deities, ... More

Examines Shinto art, literature, dance-drama, and aspects of architecture to uncover medieval Shinto’s devotional patterns. New architectural spaces were created for encountering “foreign” deities, to transform them into beneficent Kami, and enable practitioners to absorb their power. New interpretations of Nihon shoki myth emerged, along with tale literature, shrine mandalas, and the monumental work of twenty illustrated scrolls called Kasuga Gongen Genki-e, portraying the Kami as compassionately leading humanity to salvation. Mandalas pictured shrines as Pure Lands, giving pictorial form to the idea of Kami and Buddhas as ultimately the same. The shinkoku idea assumed a personal guise in that the people of the divine land were believed descended from the Kami, and to lack for nothing required for salvation.Less

The Crucial Role of Culture in Japanese Environmental Philosophy

Midori Kagawa-Fox

in Japanese Environmental Philosophy

A hybrid Japanese philosophy, integrating traditional Japanese Buddhist thought with the Western philosophical canon emerged during the twentieth century in response to the program of modernization ... More

A hybrid Japanese philosophy, integrating traditional Japanese Buddhist thought with the Western philosophical canon emerged during the twentieth century in response to the program of modernization instituted by the Maiji Restoration. Japanese culture, however, has been as important in shaping Japanese environmental ethics as have Japanese philosophical values. Japan has an extensive cultural heritage that has been built on mythology and folklore, and on religious beliefs and practices, and these ingredients have influenced the Japanese ethical consciousness. The indigenous Shinto religion, which evolved from animism, teaches that the ever-present kami (spirits) bind the Japanese to their environment. Their presence imparts a strong moral consciousness. Thus an understanding of the relationship of the kami to the Japanese people is essential for appreciating Japanese environmental ethics. Most Japanese have an intuitive belief in the kami that has been significant in forming their caring attitude toward the natural world.Less