Writing a history of Shinto is surprising hard. There are so many complications and ambiguities that it seems impossible to say anything that is true and accurate. But then I remembered that that is the nature of life. So here is my probably inaccurate version of a condensed Shinto history.
Back in ancient times, like before written history, there were some people living in Japan. We call them the Jomon from the rope pattern found on their pottery vessels. Yeah, Jomon means ‘rope’ or something like that. They had a bunch of ritual beliefs, but now the Jomon are all dead and they didn’t leave any writing behind so we don’t know about what those rituals were. It is possible they were related to kami (and kami are the heart of ‘Shinto’; Shinto being ‘the way of the kami’), but we just don’t know. Yet. Anyway, the Jomon were living all happy and stuff when some pale skins came over from the mainland to Japan. We call them the Yayoi. I forget why. Anyway, they had different rituals and beliefs and they fought and mixed with the Jomon. Depending on the village, Jomon and Yayoi customs were mixed in varying percentages. There is evidence that the south and west parts of Japan adapted more Yayoi customs while the north and east parts retained more Jomon style customs and that this division of culture is still reflected in modern times. It’s rather shocking to think that that might be true. But that’s not so important to this condensed history of Shinto, so I’ll leave it at that.
Anyway, all the villages began to form small countries and do some fighting between themselves. The country of the Yamato in Western Japan emerged as the strongest of these and went about ‘pacifying’ all the other countries. Of course, the kami native to Yamato helped out the Yamato kings (and queens!) and in return, the Yamato kings built shrines to them and worshiped them. One of these kami was Amaterasu. Originally Amaterasu lived in the palace with the Yamato kings, but one day she took a vacation to Ise with one of the imperial princess (the princess Yamato-hime) and liked it so much there she decided to stay there permanently. And the Yamato kings had been pretty intimidated by having Amaterasu always around the house, so they were pretty happy with that arrangement too. That said, they didn’t neglect Amaterasu just because she was far away in Ise. Particularly Emperor Temmu was so fond of Amaterasu that he ordered her shrine rebuilt a new every few years and always sent her lots of presents.
Amaterasu was not such a jealous kami, perhaps because she was a women and we all know women are nicer than men, and she didn’t have a problem when the Yamato kings gave presents to the kami of other tribes when they pledged allegiance to the Yamato kings. In this way, Amaterasu went from being just a local Yamato kami to being the other of the whole land of Japan, with all the other local kami subservient to her. This system of shrines and gift giving got so complicated the Yamato court dedicated a whole government office to managing it called the Jingikan. So for a time things went on like this and books were compiled of the myths and rituals that told the story and movements of the Yamato court’s divine legitimacy.
But as time progresses, the mighty rise and fall as foam upon a river’s curl. The days of ruthless heroes like Yamato Takeru of the Yamato court passed and the court’s strength was gradually sapped by the courtiers of the House of Fujiwara. With this, the elaborate system of shrine offerings overseen by the Jingikan became unsupportable. The court turned inward, taming what were once high public rituals into private court affairs and limited regular shrine offerings to just twenty-two close shrines. Thus began the Twenty-Two Shrine system. With this withdrawal of the court’s strength, provincial shrines began to promote themselves and ichi-no-miya, or First Shrines, were designated for each of the provinces. At the same time, the syncretism of the buddhas and kami became popular. Shrines and temples increasingly became indistinguishable and the kami and buddhas took on each other’s characteristics. The kami were thought the protectors of the buddhas, or the buddhas were thought the saviors of the kami. Or the kami were merely the mask the buddhas wore to more easily bring the light of Buddhism to Japan. Or perhaps it was the opposite; the buddhas were merely the form the kami took when visiting the barbarian populated lands. No one really knows.
It was in this climate, that pilgrimages became popular and the common people urged on by wandering monks called oshi flocked to famed temples and shrines. And as epidemics and disasters struck the lands, people crowded the streets of the capital in a frenzied effort to alleviate the angry spirits (called goryou) of wronged courtiers. Some of the most popular Shinto festivals in modern times such as the elegant Gion festival have their origins in these ceremonies to pacify vengeful spirits. But out of this chaos, from the halls of buddhist temples, lineages based on secret transmissions about the kami were formed and passed down from teacher to disciple. These Shinto lineages remain a part and dependent upon the Buddhism from which they were born, but they were a hint of the independent Yoshida Shinto that would later be established. Thus ended the medieval period.
Reblogged this on Buddhist Landscapes and commented:
Readers: We know that Shinto is not Buddhism of course. However to understand the spread of Buddhism in Japan we should consider the fertile ground made possible by the indigenous religion of Japan.
I like how this reads like a narrative, as it sticks in one’s head better. : ) Living out here in the Izumo region and steeped in an alternate way of constructing Shinto history, I often forget the wider, more standard approach.
[…] A continuation of my Condensed History of Shinto. You can find part 1 here. […]