Shinto

The 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo offer a fitting and timely point of departure to consider the religion-based exclusion of women and, by extension, to peer into the nation-culture-religion-gender nexus in Japan. The Japan Sumo Association, a quasi-governmental corporation, champions itself as the custodian of a divine affair cultivated by male deities and mortal men, and exclusive of women. The Sumo Association bans women and girls from entering or even touching the wrestling ring, lest they violate sumo tradition and taint their so-called sacred battlefield. Critics of sumo’s female taboo denounce the Association’s rule as anachronistic and sexist as well as illegal. The opposition focuses attention on the need for change, and justifiably so, but there exists an equally pressing need to think about why the ban prevails even with strong opposition. Olympic presentations of the male sumo wrestler open our eyes as to one such abetting force: persuasive and politically expedient visions of sumo wrestling as an ancient, sacred, and exclusively male endeavor.

Recenzia prekladu japonskej kroniky Kodžiki: Kronika dávneho Japonska z pera profesora Karola Fialu je stručným zhrnutím obsahu diela a jeho významu medzi českými prekladmi japonských diel.
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The review of Kojiki: Japanese Records of Ancient Matters written by professor Karel Fiala is a brief summary of the content of the Chronicle, as well as of its relevance among Czech translations of Japanese literary works.

Este documento es una aproximación a la religión sintoísta, revelada a través de la iconografía en elementos del escenario del videojuego Nioh.

This document is an approach to the shinto religion, which is revealed through the iconography in stage elements of Nioh videogame.

This article argues that Animal Crossing: New Horizons embodies the culture of Slowness discovered by many during the covid-19 lockdown in 2020, and that its acclaim points to a future for Slowness in games and, perhaps, in lifestyle more generally. The title will be considered within the context of Radde-Antweiler et al.'s framework of gamevironments, which considers the cultural landscape of a given game based on its technical aspects and its reception among audiences. Through this, the Slowness in the game can be identified. It will subsequently be argued that this Slowness is the result of Shinto presence in the game, as the tradition is largely concerned with the natural environment and mindfulness, contrasting with the values promoted by capitalism and globalisation. Animal Crossing: New Horizons and its popularity point to a growing discontent with the status quo of 'fast' living.

Shintō is the first and the basic religion of Japan. In most works on Shintō it is said that its central object is kami but almost nothing is said about etymology and meaning of this concept. In this paper I made an attempt to clarify this question. In Ainu religion there is concept kamuy that looks much alike kami. Ainu concept kamuy can be explained through the concept of ramat. Japanese concept kami also shapes a pair with concept of tamashii. I have come to the following conclusions: Japanese tamashii originated from Ainu ramat and Japanese kami originated from Ainu kamuy; ramat/tamashii means “vital energy exists”, it is something like energy/ether that fills the universe; kamuy means “item filled by [ramat]”; kamuy/kami are beings/items that have a lot of ramat and can share it; aim of any Shintō rite is to get more ramat/tamashii.

In Japan, marriage ceremonies prior to 1900 wedding of the crown prince used to be secular events, featuring some differences from the current matrimonial practice. This essay explores the Meiji era social engineering invention by looking at the history and practices of an altered ritual.

Japanese Traditionality and Women's Representation in Animes: Naruto Example - book version of my master thesis. // Bu çalışma yüksek lisans tezimin kitap hâline getirdiğim son versiyonudur. Kitaplaşma sürecinde içerik genişletilmiş, tezin tarih bölümü çıkartılarak gerekli bilgiler diğer başlıklara yedirilmiştir. Bu kitap sadece Kitapyurdu sitesinde satılmaktadır.

Politics is entrenched in the process of creating, sustaining and erasing memories. It is in the interest of any state that attempts to coagulate a sense of ‘self’ to invest in cultural memories of the past. Likewise, a counter-movement of resistance may also benefit from establishing identity through memories, perhaps traumatic. Shared memories forge a sense of consanguinity, they can be tools of states or of minority groups, and in this sense, they are sites of power, multi-directional in nature. Waltz with Bashir by Ari Folman and Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki are the two films interrogated in this paper. As animated films, they are of interest in an exploration of the ‘politics of memory’ in that their seemingly antithetical content belies the shared processes of memory making with which they engage. Both of these films, I argue, create and play with individual and cultural memories. Both use symbolism and other filmic techniques to evoke particular responses from particular demographics, and they make implicit and explicit commentaries on contentious political issues. This paper will focus on the ways in which memories of trauma are visually and aurally represented in these films, and place them in their particular political, historical and social narratives in order to ascertain the ways in which these ‘memories’ interact with the off-screen world. By attempting to explore both pieces simultaneously, this paper aims to explore the similar and dissimilar ways both films represent ‘memory’, and the political ramifications this entails. A range of scholars will be used hailing from primarily psychoanalytic and political traditions, such as Freud, Reider, Mansfield and Elsaessar.

In Japan, the ideal of economic practice has long been rooted in a native Shintō-inspired religious sensibility according to which the world is populated by a myriad of deities (yaoyorozu no kami; lit., “the eight million gods”). This engenders an understanding of the other in an economic transaction as having a transcendent nature, and of the household and wider society as a fortiori transcending (both spiritually and diachronically) the individual economic actor. In turn, the transcendent view of the human person has nurtured a person-centered approach to economic activity in Japan. The author examines three iterations of Japanese spiritually-inflected economic activity—the Ōmi merchants, the Shingaku teachings of Ishida Baigan, and the “unity of economic and moral practice” views of Shibusawa Eiichi and later business ethics thinkers—to show that, regardless of specific creed, Japanese economic thinking tends to reproduce the understanding of economic activity as ideally beneficial for human persons. By viewing the human person as an end and never as a means—an anthropology which is ultimately Shintōist, although broadly compatible with other beliefs—the standard economic actor in Japan works for the betterment of his counterpart and of society as a whole. This human-centered approach should and can be replicated in other countries a-round the world.

"Japon dinleri”, Japonya’da ortaya çıkmış olan Şintoizm ile diğer ülkelerde doğup Japonya’da yayılmış olan Budizm, Konfüçyanizm, Hıristiyanlık ve İslâm gibi dinleri ifade etmektedir. Japonya’da “din” kavramından, daha çok, ülkeye dışarıdan gelen inançlar anlaşıldığından dolayı Japonlardan bazen “dinim yok” ifadesi duyulabilir. Bunun en temel sebebi ise Şintoizm’in, ülkenin milli kültürü olarak değerlendirilmesidir. Bir Japon’un, bayram kutlaması ve ibadet ettikten sonra Şinto mabedinden çıkıp da dininin olmadığını söylemesi bu yüzden normaldir. Hatta bundan dolayı bazı araştırmacılar, Japonları dinsiz olarak nitelendirebilmektedir. Ancak dinler tarihçileri, bir inancın din sayılabilmesi için bünyesinde var olması gereken kendine özgü inanç, ibadet, mabed, din adamları gibi unsurlar olduğundan Şintoizm’i bir din olarak kabul etmektedir.

It was a cold Friday evening in Tokyo with a dusty and dry wind blowing through the underground passage to the subway station. I suddenly realised that my body felt light and refreshed. Great joy and excitement kept bubbling up inside me. I couldn't stop smiling. Only two hours before I had felt so tired. It had been another long week at the US based company where I was in charge of three sections. My job had me moving from one desk to another, checking the progress of various projects. My brain felt physically heavy. It was hard to stand up straight and I could feel a headache coming on. Despite my exhaustion, I had dragged myself to the Ikebana class I usually attended after work on Fridays. What had happened during the class to give me such energy? I was given some flowers and some branches. I focused on the touch and smell of my materials. I needed to concentrate to create a design that really brought out their most beautiful elements. There were only five of us in a large classroom that could accommodate more than hundred students, but we were all so focused we seemed to fill the space. The two hours passed quickly and quietly. At the end of the class our teacher, the late Sogetsu Head Master, Hiroshi Teshigahara shared his insights and advice on our arrangements with us.

In 2003, Hayao Miyazaki’s animated feature Spirited Away (originally released in Japan in 2001 as “Sen and Chihiro’s Spiriting Away”) won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. To this day, it is the only non-English film to be given the accolade, and in subsequent years it has only grown in acclaim. Despite its popularity in the West, Spirited Away is a distinctly Japanese film, heavily featuring traditional architecture and customs as well as foregrounding Shinto imagery and ideals in its plot. In an interview for The Art of Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away,” Miyazaki confirmed his intentions to headline these traditional concepts. He stated, “Surrounded by high technology and its flimsy devices, children are more and more losing their roots. We must inform them of the richness of our traditions.” His comments reflect that, despite popular representations of classical Japanese culture such as Spirited Away, Japan has become more and more secularised since the mid-twentieth century, and younger generations are increasingly growing up without knowledge of traditional Japanese customs, especially those of Shinto. This decline is in part due to the growing inaccessibility of physical Shinto spaces in modern Japan, a phenomenon that is reflected in the representation of Shinto as surrounded by modernity in Spirited Away.

Tras su introducción en Japón a partir de 1549 de manos del jesuita Francisco Javier, comenzó una nueva etapa de la historia nipona que ha sido usualmente denominada como el Siglo Cristiano, cuyo desarrolló se produjo entre los años 1549 y 1650 aproximadamente. En un primer momento, las creencias cristianas se extendieron rápidamente, y a comienzos del siglo XVII Japón contaba con unos 300.000 conversos y más de 200 iglesia distribuidas en diversas zonas del país. Los cristianos japoneses fueron conocidos como kirishitan, japonización del portugués cristao, actualmente empleado para referirse tanto a las creencias como ritos de estos conversos de comienzos de la Edad Moderna en tierras niponas.

This chapter traces the eventful biography of Steve McCarty vis-à-vis Japan. The story spans decades from graduate school specializing in Japan to discovering an astonishing syncretism of Asian religions. Along the way, the author gained a Japanese family and became a rare foreign full professor in 1993. Anecdotes vividly portray daily life, mostly on the southern island of Shikoku, but also in Nagoya and Osaka. Playing on many baseball teams brought the author into popular groups where members are frank and humorous. Functioning in daily relationships in Japanese, a college teaching career, and researching original sources were all motivating to improve language skills and adapt to the culture. The author led language teaching and research organizations, and collaborated on multilingual guidebooks to Shikoku with local teachers. After moving to Osaka in 2004, all family members became surprisingly successful. Invited by the government to regularly introduce Japan to visiting officials from around the world, it became clear that everything learned about Asia, the Japanese language, culture, and people proved useful and provoked reflection. Chapter sections: Why Japan? Formative Years from Boston to Honolulu > Glimpse of a Promising Research Area: Japanese Fusion of Religions > Moving to Japan > Playing Baseball for Language Fluency and Acculturation > Teaching English > Marriage and Family Life > Intercultural Communication and Bilingualism > The Pilgrimage Island of Shikoku > Buddhism and Shinto > Major Sites of Buddhist-Shinto Syncretism > A Synthesis of Asian Religions in a Mandala of Mountains > Notes [References].

Enshrined at Daigoji 醍醐寺 temple—one of the most important centers of Shingon esoteric Buddhism—is the female tutelary deity Seiryō (or Seiryū) Gongen 清瀧権現. Medieval texts depict her as a draconic goddess, usually the third daughter of the dragon king Shakara (Sk. Sāgara) 娑伽羅龍王. Traditions say that she physically traveled to Japan with Kūkai 空海 (774-835), and that her cult became particularly prominent at Daigoji after the temple was established by the Shingon monk Shōbō 聖宝 (835-909).
From the eleventh century to the middle ages, Seiryō Gongen appeared mostly within the context of rainmaking rituals. Such practices at Daigoji eventually fell out of favor during the late Kamakura period, but her cult did not lose its popularity. In fact, her name is frequently referenced in one major Muromachi source for the history of the Shingon school, the diary of the Sanbōin 三宝院 monk Manzei 満済 (also Mansai, 1378-1435).  As the abbot of Daigoji, Manzei conducted various rituals at the Seiryō shrines of Daigoji temple, such as recitations of sūtras, offerings, doctrinal discussions (dangi 談義), and even included Nō performances. He also was a central figure at the court of the Ashikaga shoguns, especially Yoshimitsu 義満 (1358-1408), and he played a crucial role in supporting their regime (Mori 2004).
This article will analyze Manzei’s Seiryō’s rituals and and replace them in the historical context of this goddess’s cult. After a presentation of Manzei’s activities, a return to the origins of the Seiryō worship will show the cult’s stability and evolution during Japan’s less-understood late Middle Ages. I will show how Manzei’s rituals, although they followed traditional patterns, also consecrated a gradual shift in the goddess’s role inside the Daigoji temple. This analysis will then allow for a discussion of the category of guardian deities in premodern Japan, as well as shed new light on the cult’s developments during the Edo period and beyond.

Şintoizm, Japonların tarih sahnesine çıkmasından bu yana var olduğuna inanılan, toplumun kültür ve felsefesiyle iç içe geçmiş Japon milli dinine verilen addır. Şintoizm’e ait bilgilere genellikle Kociki  ve Nihongi adı verilen dinî metinlerde ve halk inanışlarında rastlanır. Bu dindeki tarih ve inançla ilgili anlatımlar daha çok mitolojiktir. Günümüzde Japon dini denildiğinde Şintoizm ve Budizm’in sentezinden müteşekkil bir inanç sistemi önümüze çıkar. Bu senkretik din anlayışında Japonların, geçiş törenlerinin daha çok doğum, yetişkinlik, evlenme gibi kısımlarını Şinto mabetlerinde, ölüm ve sonrası ritüelleri ise Budist mabetlerde yerine getirdikleri görülür.
        Japon halk inanışı yüzyıllarca kulaktan kulağa aktarılmış ve insanların arasındaki bu hikâyelerin bir kısmı VIII. yüzyılda derlenen dinî metinlere girmiştir. Ancak Japon mitolojisinde yer etmiş hayvanlarla ilgili inanışların hepsini dinî metinlerde bulmak mümkün değildir. Bu inanışların kimisi atasözü ve deyim olarak varlığını devam ettirirken, kimisi de masal ve hikâye kitabı gibi eserlerle günümüze kadar taşınmıştır. Bu yüzden hayvanlarla ilgili inanışlar için dinî metinler yanında, Japon mitolojisi ile ilgili yazılmış eserlere ve atasözlerine göz atmak gerekir.
        Şintoizm’de hayvanların yeri ve önemini kavrayabilmek için bu dinde bulunan “kami” kavramını doğru anlamak önem arz eder. Zira bu dine dair tüm öğreti ve ibadetler doğrudan ya da dolaylı olarak bu temel kavramla ilişkilidir. Dolayısıyla kami kavramı bilinmeden, bu kavramla doğrudan bağlantılı olan Şintoizm’de hayvanlar konusunu anlamak zor olacaktır. Hayvanlar Japonya’da önem verilen bazı mekânlarda ve zamanlarda daha da ön plana çıkar. Bu nedenle çalışmamızda Şintoizm’de hayvanlara bakış açısı, kutsal varlık (kami), kutsal zaman (matsuri) ve kutsal mekân (cinca/miya) algısı çerçevesinde ele alınacaktır.

Creation myths from ancient Greece are compared with their Japanese counterparts from the early 8th Century Kojiki (古事記, Records of Ancient Matters). This fusion essay is a summation of previous book sections by Greek and Japanese scholars on the element of fire, including Prometheus. Interpretation of the symbolism by the author brings out similarities and differences between European and Asian cultures. (The fusion essay on the element of air, including Eros and Psyche, is also available at this site).

The practices of Miko, Ainu and Ryūkyūan traditions of Japan have changed dramatically over time. While the Miko tradition is to some degree aligned with the mainstream dominant culture, the Ainu and Ryūkyūan cultures tend to be under-represented and viewed as ‘other’ within Japanese society. Institutionally, Japan recognizes the Ainu as Indigenous people through a resolution passed in 2007. Tokyo-based Kyodo News published an article claiming that there had been discussion in August of 2017 of passing a law with a similar acknowledgment, however, no such measure has officially been announced. The Ryūkyūan people in Okinawa are often viewed as a sub-group in Japan, and therefore they are rarely framed as an Indigenous minority. There have, however, been movements such as that of activist Shinako Oyakawa who has petitioned the UN forum for the recognition of the rights of Ryūkyūan people as indigenous (Magee, 2018).

Bewildering archaeological discoveries, combined with layers of lore from many religions, have been associated with the Elephant's Head Mountain Range (Zōzuzankei) on Shikoku Island. A comparative Asian perspective, with reference to religious syncretism of the Heian period in Japan, leads to the conclusion that premodern Japanese viewed the whole Elephant's Head Mountain Range as a sacred area and a mandala that practitioners could traverse.

The Shinto Mirror of Yata contains an undeciphered message on the reverse side with a seemingly out of place Hebrew name of Yah.  Some early Japanese letters appear to produce no parallel words.  However, a study of early Brahmi brings up some surprising results.

Derived from Latin ex voto suscepto “in pursuance of a vow,” an ex voto embodies the hopes, dreams, and anxieties of the person who deposits it. Almost anything, regardless of size, weight, form, or original function, can become a votive object. Ultimately, the category refers to a subset of the material world in which a thing is not necessarily made to be a votive, but instead becomes charged with votive meaning once dedicated to a deity or deities. This volume, one of the first collections devoted exclusively to the subject, builds on the assumption that a shared conceptual framework underpins votive objects, and that by merit of their consecration they have become a category representing a special stage in the life of a material.

The contributors to this comparative study examine ex votos across a range of locations and time periods, including the classical Mediterranean world, medieval Europe, the period of the Catholic Reform, and on to Mexico, Shinto and Buddhist Japan, and Muslim Iran. Voluminous and diverse, Ex Voto will appeal in a wide range of fields, including history, religion, and anthropology.

Analysing the role of the Chigo from within the western academy, far removed temporally and spatially from the religious and social discourses that framed their existence, naturally comes with its dangers. One must be careful to not use analytic categories or methodologies that obscure the material reality of the Chigo, or any person who inhabits a specific role that straddles the religious and the political; and one must also avoid falling into Orientalist traps of assuming Japanese exceptionalism. With these ethical quandaries firm in mind, this essay will attempt to explore the multitudinous social, religious and soteriological narratives in which the literary and physical figure of the Chigo exists and the ways in which these narratives are extensions and reiterations of existing themes in Japanese literature and Asian literary movements more generally. This paper will also argue that the conflicting narratives and justifications for the existence of the Chigo, as well as the disparity between literary representation and their material realities suggest the historic need in Japanese monastic institutions to create multiple Bhuddological and ‘intrapersonal’ justifications for what was essentially institutional, physical, emotional rape and non-consensual grooming. This serious avenue will be explored while attending to the precarity inherent within using a western rhetoric of sexual rights and violence to analyse a non-western case-study, and these interrogations will also be flanked by a discussion of the discursive limits of using ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’, specifically the word ‘homosexuality’, as an analytic category in these conversations. This essay thus contends that the Chigo is a literary figure who reflects several historical soteriological and literary trends, who held real religious value, and represents real young men, whom we know less about, who were central religious figures in many temples and communities, and the victims of non-consensual sexual and emotional violence.

Asian Religions is a general introduction to the academic study of Asian religious traditions. The course familiarizes students with the major religious and philosophical traditions of select geographical areas in South, Central, and East Asia. While refining the skills of empathetic description and non-evaluative comparison, the course also examines religion as an area of academic study, examining the function of religion in relation to human beliefs, social practices, and culture in general. A primary goal of the course is for all students to learn to define, accurately describe, and compare in a non-evaluative manner, various religious traditions within Asia so as to discover significant similarities and differences in various forms of human thought and behavior.

This essay interrogates the circulation of Japanese culture through European intellectual networks since the opening of the archipelago in 1853. We argue firstly that the archipelago's self-imposed political distance from the Asian continent is one of the reasons for the crystallization of Japanese specificities and that secondly, geographical distance enhances the impact of these specificities on the creativity of European architects. 20th c. Western interest focuses among other things on Shinto-the path of the gods-and naturality in the arts. We show how these specificities caught the attention of Dimitris Pikionis (1887-1968). We look at Pikionis' use of wood in the layout of St Demetrius Loumbardiaris and stone in the archeological site around the Acropolis in Athens from 1954 to 1958 by comparing descriptions of Japanese garden pavilions and paths in documents that were at his disposal. Our findings are grounded on the analysis of Pikionis' own books, magazines, notes and drawings related to Japan and on his collaboration with his daughter Agni Pikióni. Keywords Japanese gardens, Shinto gate, Acropolis paths, Dimitris Pikionis, Bruno Taut. PROJECT NAME Landscaping of the archeological site around the Acropolis and layout of St Demetrius Loumbardiaris LOCATION Athens Acropolis, Philopappos and Nymphs Hills COMMISSIONING AGENCY Constantin Karamanlis, Minister for the Public Works and Tourism DESIGNER Dimitris Pikionis DATE OF CONSTRUCTION 1954-1958 SURFACE AREA 80'000 m 2 DOCOMOMO Greece works at developing a restoration strategy for Pikionis' Acropolis Works as they are in a state of deterioration.

En la presente ponencia se analizará la representación de los dioses shintoístas y la relación que mantienen con los humanos en la serie de animación japonesa (anime) Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha (Inari, Konkon, ABC del Amor, 2014) dirigida por Toru Takahashi y basada en el manga (historieta japonesa) escrito por Morohe Yoshida; publicado por la editorial Kadokawa Shoten desde 2010. El público objetivo de la historia es seinen, es decir, que está dirigida a jóvenes adultos. En los comienzos de la humanidad tanto los mitos como las leyendas eran transmitidos de forma oral de generación en generación. Con el paso del tiempo serán plasmados en papel, en el caso japonés, en dos obras clásicas de su literatura: el Kojiki (Crónica de antiguos hechos de Japón) en el año 712 y el Nihongi o Nihon shoki (Anales de Japón) en el año 720 de nuestra era, ésta última concebida como la historia oficial del país oriental. Por lo tanto, para nuestro análisis compararemos los relatos y personajes descriptos en ambos escritos con la forma en que son representados en Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha. Cabe mencionar que estos relatos son seleccionados de acuerdo a la situación histórica, política y religiosa de la época en la que son trasladados al papel. Asimismo, sus contenidos se ven sesgados y otros enaltecidos dependiendo de quién realiza u ordena el registro de los mismos. La animación está situada en el Japón actual en donde Inari Fushimi, la protagonista de la historia, evita que un pequeño zorro llamado Kon caiga al río. Debido a esta acción, Uka-no-mi-tama-no-Kami (la diosa del santuario shintō, hija del dios de las tormentas –Susanō– y sobrina de la diosa Sol –Amaterasu-Ômikami–) le otorga a la niña parte de su poder y esto le permite cambiar su apariencia a cualquier forma humana. El anime es un producto cultural masivo y un lenguaje contemporáneo creado por la industria cultural japonesa. En este bien cultural se estudiará entonces la transposición, es decir, –en esta oportunidad– el pasaje de un medio gráfico, en donde se narra la historia de la era de los dioses de la mitología japonesa, a un discurso audiovisual como el anime y los cambios que se originaron o no en dicha adaptación.

Names Izanagi and Izanami are recorded by completely meaningless combinations of kanji; existing interpretations of these names are folk etymologies, i.e.: it means that Izanagi and Izanami seem not to be words of Japanese origin. Izanagi and Izanami belong to the little amount of kami who form spouse pairs: there is about 6% of such kami in first scroll of Nihon Shoki, such type of kami is rather widely represented in Ainu folklore. Ending gi in Izanagi correlates with ending kur used in male names of Ainu kamuy/heroes ending mi in Izanami correlates with ending mat used in female names of Ainu kamuy/heroes. Component izana seems to have originated from ancient Ainu form: *'iso-ne that means " to be bearful " , " to be lucky in hunting " , " to be rich " ; and thus, initial forms of Izanagi was *'Iso-ne-kwr " Bearful man " and initial form of Izanami was *'Iso-ne-mat " Bearful woman " .

As it was in Japan and throughout the Japanese empire, Shintō was present in Korea during the Japanese colonial period (1905-1945). The legacy of Shintō in Korea is closely tied with Japanese imperialism, forced assimilation, and compulsory religious practices. The prevalent understanding of Shintō in colonial Korea is based on several assumptions: that Shintō was the state religion of Japan; that Shintō was monolithic and Japanese were united in it; that Shintō’s presence in Korea was at the behest of the Japanese state and for the purpose of assimilation and imperialism. Shintō concepts and institutions were used by Japanese authorities – in the form now known widely as State Shintō – to support imperial expansion and the colonization of Korea. Additionally, Koreans and others were compelled by colonial authorities to attend shrines and rituals. But the ideology of the Japanese state was not precisely Shintō nor was it universally accepted. The nature of Shintō was debatable within Japan as well as among the Japanese in Korea. Shintō in Korea was introduced and mostly practiced by civilian settlers. Colonial authorities became involved in it later and often competed with the settlers over matters pertaining to Shintō. The reality of Shintō in Korea was more complex and nuanced than is typically portrayed. The variation of Shintō being employed by Japanese authorities in Korea was not a historical constant and was relatively new even in Japan at the time. By examining the subject more thoroughly than most previous scholarship, I hope to benefit the study of Korea, Shintō, and East Asia in general, by broadening the discourse on Shintō in Korea.

Whenever visiting Japan, no doubt, one will come across a Shintō shrine 1 where people habitually stop by for a worship. Wherever is a shrine building, a priest serving there conducts liturgies called norito. Each daily and yearly recurring rite, rite of passage, purification rite etc. holds an offering commonly accompanied by reciting a norito. Hence, norito constitutes arguably the most prominent expression of the ritual that one can experience while being on the sacred grounds. Yet norito are often described as obscure and hard to comprehend, regardless of the listener's proficiency level of the contemporary Japanese language. The aim of this paper is to encompass several crucial points of norito. The tasks are: 1) to consider emergence of norito out of Shintō sacred scriptures, kotodama and the peculiar use of language, 2) to render an insight into the Shrine Shintō, typology and structure of norito, 3) to analyze traits of the Japanese national religion in norito. The sequence of Japanese names-a family name followed by a given name-is observed in this paper.

In Japan, it seems that people perform various religious behaviours in a space saturated with associated paraphernalia with what looks like religious reverence, but they do not identify themselves as religious. At the same time, religion in Japan is said to be unique along any number of dimensions. Yet, along none of these dimensions, separately or together, is religion in Japan actually unique. I argue the reasons for the first position lies in Japan's history and the management of a stigmatised relation between religion and national identity. This relation still functions today and is managed by a discourse that disassociates religion with identity and associates it with qualities like syncretism and pluralism. These associations are modernist and this is shown by reference to Kant's writings on religion. This also allows us to classify religion in Japan as a modern civil religion in opposition to Bellah. The reason for the second position is to reduce the modernist identity to an authentic Japanese identity. This, though, as we shall see, is problematic.