Shinto
FOUNDED: c. 500 C.E.
RELIGION AS A PERCENTAGE OF WORLD POPULATION: 1.8 percent
Overview
The term Shinto refers to the worship of local divinities, called kami, in the Japanese archipelago. "Shinto" literally means "the way of the kami." It is difficult to pinpoint the historical origins of this Japanese religion. It has no founder, so its beginnings cannot be connected with an individual. Indeed, the location of the origins of Shinto in history depends upon how the term Shinto itself is defined. For centuries nativist scholars in Japan (kokugakusha) and apologists for the imperial family have claimed that Shinto is the expression of the natural and innate spirituality of the Japanese people. They have argued that this spirituality—styled Yamatodamashii, or "the spirit/soul of Yamato," Yamato being the name for ancient Japan—is unique to the Japanese as a people and has not changed over the centuries. They have projected the origins of Shinto back into the misty past and connected it with a divinely ordained political order. From a modern perspective, claims such as these are ideological and xenophobic in nature; they are not historically grounded. Yet, while it is impossible to accept this picture of Shinto as historically accurate, the very fact that so many Japanese scholars and Shinto apologists have proffered it is itself useful for the historian of religions.
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