Japanese History: Shinto Religion

Studies of Japanese culture and history have always pointed to Shinto as the defining element of Japanese religion, having continually existed from prehistoric to modern times. There are those who go so far as to say that Shinto is even more than a religion, that it is and has always been the very nature and spirit of the Japanese people. Shinto is argued to be the unifying force among the Japanese people, bringing together the heterogeneity of rituals and practices and thus defining Japanese religion and culture. However, Kuroda Toshio, in his article "Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion," refutes the claim that Shinto is a native Japanese religion that has existed throughout history. He asserts that Shinto did not emerge as an independent religion until the end of the fifteenth century, and argues instead that kenmitsu Buddhism, which does include Shinto as one of its components, is the true native religion of the Japanese. He then questions the legitimacy of accepting Shinto as the dominant primitive religion simply because historic sampling has made it appear so, and casts doubt on what may be accepted as a "true picture of history" (Kuroda, 20). In this essay, I will be arguing for the validity of this question, while nonetheless asserting the importance of the pursuit of history. History cannot be accepted as an absolutely accurate representation of the past, but rather as a reformation of the past in light of today's concepts. At the same time, efforts to understand history accurately are essential because, as Robert Bellah shows, historical concepts may have important applications in today's world.

The word Shinto as it is understood today is different from its original meaning, argues Toshio. This implies that history undergoes constant change, and shows the difficulty of pinpointing a single stage in time and accurately describing that point in today's language. Today Shinto is accepted as a word that has always meant Japan's indigenous religion. However, Toshio stresses the difficulty in finding a "clear-cut example of the word Shinto used in such a way in early writings," and presents three possible interpretations of the word Shinto in the Nihon shoki (Kuroda, 4). Shinto can be used as a generic term meaning widespread beliefs, whether they are of Chinese, Korean or Japanese origin. It can also be used to refer to kami, as intellectual historian Tsuda Sokichi defines it. Lastly, Shinto can be interpreted as Taoism. Toshio argues that it is possible that "Japan's ancient popular beliefs were not so much an indigenous religion but merely a local brand of Taoism, and the word Shinto simply meant Taoism" (Kuroda, 6). Toshio does not claim any one of these three interpretations is the correct one, but rather points out that "none view Japan's ancient popular beliefs as an independent religion and none use the word Shinto as a specific term for such a religion" (Kuroda, 7). This argument is significant because it not only overturns the commonly accepted view of Shinto, but it also can be extended to challenge the validity of concepts in general. If a widely accepted word like Shinto is a misconception, then other concepts may be questioned as well.

This idea that concepts change over time is further supported when we look at "Times, Pasts, History" in Stefan Tanaka's book New Times in Modern Japan. Tanaka argues that the "historicity of history" itself must be considered when writing an accurate account of the past (Tanaka 3). He approaches this task "by including history itself as part of that past; it, too, should be an object of our inquiry" (Tanaka 3). By historicity of history, Tanaka means that everything changes over and during time. For example, as Kuroda has shown in the case of the word Shinto, words may stay the same while meanings change. This is contrasted by what seems to be the common sense way of looking at history, through an ahistorical viewpoint; that is, things are unchanging and permanent. Instead, Tanaka argues that there is a "variability of the past, made stable through history" (Tanaka, 24). It is easier for historians to look back at past events from their present stance and tell the story how they see it, as a "stable" set of chronological events. However, this is not the case. History is more than merely "perception and description," it is "rendering one's natural and human world into an orderly form" (Tanaka, 17). Here Tanaka is arguing that the dynamics of history get redefined into something with form, something tangible, when written from the current perspective. Tanaka cites Davidson, who describes how "an old phrase or word is stabilized in a new way, resulting in the production of a new set of concepts, and a new realm of statements" (Tanaka, 24). Thus history becomes the creation of something new, rather than the representation of what has already occurred. History "gives form, a materiality, to abstractions, thereby making them Ð''real'" (Tanaka, 23). By providing this structure to what has happened in the past, history changes the past, and thus cannot be accepted as an exact projection of what really happened. This is why Tanaka argues that history is part of the past too, and that our endeavor to understand what really happened must include understanding history as a tool itself.

Furthermore, Robert Bellah, in his paper "The Contemporary Meaning of Kamakura Buddhism," also acknowledges the difficulty involved with understanding the past,

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