Like many other ethnic groups throughout the world, the earliest inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago constructed and lived in a religious world of meaning. To them the whole world was permeated by sacred power, authenticated by myths. In the early historical period, local traditions were consolidated around the emergent imperial cult in a form that later came to be designated as Shintō, or "the way of kami." Many aspects of the archaic traditions have been preserved as basic features of an unorganized folk religion. Meanwhile, through contacts with Korea and China, Japan came under the impact of religious and cultural influences from the continent of Asia. Invariably, the religion of the people was changed as they adopted and adapted the concepts, symbols, rituals, and art forms of Confucianism, Daoism, the yin-yang school, and Buddhism. Although all of these religious and semi-religious systems kept a measure of...