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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 BC to AD 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]
Shinto, which lacked its own scriptures and had few prayers, had, as a result of syncretic practices begun in the Nara period, widely adopted Shingon Buddhist rituals. Between the eighth and fourteenth centuries, Shinto was nearly totally absorbed by Buddhism, becoming known as Ryōbu Shinto (Dual Shinto).
This 1878 engraving by Toyohara Chikanobu (1838–1912) visually presents the central tenet of State Shinto (1871–1946). This Shinto variant asserted and promoted belief in the divinity of the Emperor, which arose from a genealogical family tree extending back to the first emperor and to the most important deities of Japanese mythology.
Shinto provided spiritual support to the political order and was an important tie between the individual and the community. Shinto also helped preserve a sense of national identity. Shinto eventually assumed an intellectual form as shaped by neo-Confucian rationalism and materialism.
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.
The Twenty-Two Shrines (二十二社, Nijūni-sha) of Japan is one ranking system for Shinto shrines.The system was established during the Heian period and formed part of the government's systematization of Shinto during the emergence of a general anti-Chinese sentiment and the suppression of the Taoist religion. [1]
The Kojiki (古事記, "Records of Ancient Matters" or "An Account of Ancient Matters"), also sometimes read as Furukotofumi [1] or Furukotobumi, [2] [a] is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, hymns, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts down to 641 [3] concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the kami (神), and the Japanese imperial line.