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Shinto is a religion native to Japan with a centuries'-long history tied to various influences in origin. [1]Although historians debate [citation needed] the point at which it is suitable to begin referring to Shinto as a distinct religion, kami veneration has been traced back to Japan's Yayoi period (300 BCE to CE 300).
A torii gateway to the Yobito Shrine (Yobito-jinja) in Abashiri City, HokkaidoThere is no universally agreed definition of Shinto. [2] According to Joseph Cali and John Dougill, if there was "one single, broad definition of Shinto" that could be put forward, it would be that "Shinto is a belief in kami", the supernatural entities at the centre of the religion. [3]
A Buddhist pagoda (a Yakushi-dō (薬師堂) at Tsurugaoka Hachimangū shrine in Kamakura before the shinbutsu bunri. The Japanese term shinbutsu bunri (神仏分離) indicates the separation of Shinto from Buddhism, introduced after the Meiji Restoration which separated Shinto kami from buddhas, and also Buddhist temples from Shinto shrines, which were originally amalgamated.
Shinto (神道, Shintō), also kami-no-michi, [a] is the indigenous religion of Japan and of most of the people of Japan. [14] George Williams classifies Shinto as an action-centered religion; [15] it focuses on ritual practices to be carried out diligently in order to establish a connection between present-day Japan and its ancient roots. [16]
Foxes sacred to Shinto kami Inari, a torii, a Buddhist stone pagoda, and Buddhist figures together at Jōgyō-ji, Kamakura.. Shinbutsu-shūgō (神仏習合, "syncretism of kami and buddhas"), also called Shinbutsu-konkō (神仏混淆, "jumbling up" or "contamination of kami and buddhas"), is the syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism that was Japan's main organized religion up until the Meiji period.
The Shinto Directive stated it was established to "free the Japanese people from direct or indirect compulsion to believe or profess to believe in a religion or cult officially designated by the state" and "prevent a recurrence of the perversion of Shinto theory and beliefs into militaristic and ultranationalistic propaganda". [5]: 39
It was the idea that Shinto Shrines were secular in their nature rather than religious, [2] and that Shinto was not a religion, but rather a secular set of Japanese national traditions. This was linked to State Shinto and the idea that the state controlling and enforcing Shinto was not a violation of freedom of religion .
As a result "religions" such as denominational Shinto and Buddhism and Shrine Shinto separated, and declared that Shinto was a national, not religious, ritual. [10] Although the Religion Bill of 1899 did not include Shinto or Christianity, denominational Shinto began to be referred to as national Shinto toward the end of the Meiji period.