Shinto is the national religion of Japan. Instead, Shinto emphasizes ritual purity and cleanliness in one’s dealings with the “kami”. Fo many Japanese it is simply a “celebration of life, of all forms of life and the place of human beings in nature.” The absence of official sacred scriptures in Shinto reflects the religion’s lack of moral commandments. On the other hand it embraces a hodgepodge collection of folk practices, everyday beliefs and secret rituals. Shintoism has no founder, no official sacred scriptures, no fixed dogma and no concept of afterlife.On one hand it is very formal and organized. A survey that came up the figure of 85 million did so by counting the number of people that contributed to shrine festivals, something most Japanese feel obligated to do as much out of social duty as religious belief. One survey counted 3.25 million Shinto followers while another counted 107 million. The name Shinto is based on the Chinese character “Shin-tao” which roughly means "Way of the Gods." It is derived from Chinese words “she”, meaning “divine being? and “tao”, meaning “the way.” The term “shinto? was coined in the sixth century when Buddhism entered Japan so the two religions could be distinguished from one another.ĭetermining the number of Shinto followers in Japan is difficult because it is difficult to define exactly what a Shinto follower is.
With the introduction of the paddy-field system during the Yayoi period (300 BC-AD 300), the agricultural rituals and festivals that later became part of Shinto began to develop. Shinto has been around in a formal sense for over 1450 years, coexisting with Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Japan's present emperor is reportedly the 125th in an unbroken line of descendants of Emperor Jimmu. One of the most important deities is Amaterasu-omikami, the sun goddess, who, according to legend, gave birth to Japan's first ruler, Emperor Jimmu.
There are literally millions of kamis, most of whom are associated with the heavens or natural objects on earth such as trees and mountains. 19th century Shinto priest Shintoism is an informal animist religion that honors ancestors, pays tribute to “kamis”, or spirits, and has traditionally had strong bonds with the Japanese state, emperor and culture.
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