The term Shinto, meaning the way of the gods, was not originally a name for a distinct religion but a generic descriptor for popular belief and indigenous practices that existed long before the concept of organized religion took hold in Japan. The earliest written records using this term appear in the 8th century texts known as the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, yet these documents were commissioned by ruling elites to legitimize their power rather than to codify a faith. For centuries, the worship of kami, the supernatural entities that inhabit all things from mountains to rivers, was so deeply woven into daily life that it was indistinguishable from the customs of the Japanese people themselves. It was not until the Meiji era of the 19th century that the government formally separated these practices from Buddhism to create State Shinto, effectively inventing Shinto as a distinct religion to serve the needs of a modernizing nation. Before this political intervention, the term Shinto was often used to distinguish indigenous Chinese religions from imported ones, or simply to refer to the authority and power of a deity, with no single founder or canonical text to guide the diverse practices that would eventually coalesce under this name.
Polytheism and The Divine
At the heart of Shinto lies the belief in kami, supernatural entities that are present everywhere, from the wind and rain to the dead and the living. Unlike the omnipotent gods of Western monotheism, kami are not necessarily immortal or all-knowing; they are conceptually fluid forces that can be benevolent or destructive, depending on how they are treated. The number of kami is often described as eight million, a phrase signifying an infinite quantity rather than a literal count, and they are believed to inhabit both organic and inorganic matter. These entities are associated with specific places, such as a prominent waterfall, a large rock, or a distinctive tree, and physical objects like mirrors, swords, and stones are often enshrined as their physical presence. The most famous of these is Amaterasu, the sun goddess, whose story of hiding in a cave and plunging the earth into darkness is central to the religion's cosmology. While some kami are venerated in a single location, others like Hachiman, the god of war, have tens of thousands of shrines dedicated to them across the country. The act of establishing a new shrine to a kami who already has one is known as a kanjo, or dividing the spirit, and there is no limit to the number of places a kami can be enshrined, with their power remaining undiminished by their presence in multiple locations.
Purity and The Natural Order
A central theme in Shinto is the avoidance of kegare, or pollution, and the maintenance of kegare, or purity, which is seen as a temporary condition that can be corrected through ritual cleansing. Humans are viewed as fundamentally pure, and pollution is caused by contact with death, disease, blood, or other taboo subjects, requiring specific rites to restore spiritual health. Purification ceremonies often involve fresh water, salt water, or salt, with full immersion in the sea being regarded as the most ancient and efficacious form of cleansing. This practice links directly to the mythological tale of Izanagi, who bathed in the sea to rid himself of the pollution brought about by witnessing his deceased wife Izanami's putrefaction, an act from which further kami emerged. The concept of kegare extends to daily life, where people may sprinkle salt on themselves after a funeral or place salt outside a restaurant before business commences to ward off bad luck. Fire is also perceived as a source of purification, and various words related to death, illness, or meat are considered taboo and avoided when at a shrine. The goal is to cultivate a harmonious relationship between humans and the natural world, ensuring that the kami are pleased and that the community remains in a state of spiritual well-being.
Shinto focuses on ritual behavior rather than doctrine, with the primary goal being the maintenance of communal and ceremonial traditions for the purpose of human well-being. The priests, known as kannushi, are often hereditary and wear regalia based on the clothes worn at the imperial court during the Heian period, including a tall, rounded hat and black lacquered wooden clogs. These priests are assisted by miko, or shrine-maidens, who are typically unmarried women who perform the sacred dance known as kagura and assist in ceremonial rites. The number of priests at a particular shrine can vary, with some having dozens and others having none, instead being administered by local lay volunteers. Before certain major festivals, priests may undergo a period of abstinence from sexual relations and other activities, such as consuming tea, coffee, or alcohol, to ensure they are spiritually pure. The chief priest at a shrine is the gusha, and larger shrines may also have an assistant head priest, the gusha. Historically, there were female priests, but they were largely pushed out of their positions in 1868, and by the late 1990s, around 90% of priests were male, contributing to accusations that Shinto discriminates against women. Despite this, priests are free to marry and have children, and at smaller shrines, they often have other full-time jobs, serving only as priests during special occasions.
Shrines and The Sacred Space
Public spaces in which the kami are worshipped are often known under the generic term jinja, which applies to the location rather than to a specific building. There are around 100,000 public shrines in Japan, with about 80,000 affiliated with the Association of Shinto Shrines and another 20,000 being unaffiliated. These shrines are found all over the country, from isolated rural areas to dense metropolitan ones, and are often set within gardens or wooded groves called shinboku, which vary in size from just a few trees to sizeable areas of woodland. The inner sanctuary in which the kami resides is the honden, and inside this may be stored material belonging to the kami, known as shintai, which can include artworks, clothing, weapons, musical instruments, bells, and mirrors. These objects are concealed from the view of visitors and may be hidden inside boxes so that even the priests do not know what they look like. Shrine entrances are marked by a two-post gateway with either one or two crossbeams atop it, known as torii, which are regarded as demarcating the area where the kami resides. Passing under them is often viewed as a form of purification, and their architectural form is distinctly Japanese, although the decision to paint most of them in vermillion reflects a Chinese influence dating from the Nara period.
Festivals and The Agricultural Cycle
Public festivals are commonly termed matsuri, and these are considered the central act of Shinto worship because the religion is fundamentally community and family-based. Most festivals mark the seasons of the agricultural year and involve offerings being directed to the kami in thanks, with shrines traditionally holding their celebrations on clear days, the days of the new, full, and half moons. Spring festivals are called harae and often incorporate ceremonies in which rice is ritually planted, while summer festivals are termed nagoshi and are usually focused on protecting the crops against pests and other threats. Autumn festivals are known as shichi and primarily focus on thanking the kami for the rice or other harvest, with the niiname-sai, or festival of new rice, held across many Shinto shrines on the 23rd of November. Winter festivals, called shinjitsu, often feature on welcoming in the spring, expelling evil, and calling in good influences for the future. The season of the new year is called shogatsu, and on the last day of the year, practitioners usually clean their household shrines in preparation for New Year's Day. Many people visit public shrines to celebrate new year, and this first visit of the year is known as hatsumode, where they buy amulets and talismans to bring them good fortune over the coming year.
Rites of Passage and The Afterlife
The formal recognition of events is given great importance in Japanese culture, with common rituals including the shichi-go-san, which entails a child's first visit to a Shinto shrine. A tradition holds that if a boy he should be brought to the shrine on the 32nd day after birth, and if a girl she should be brought on the 33rd day. Another rite of passage, the genpuku, is a coming of age ritual marking the transition to adulthood and occurs when an individual is around 20. Wedding ceremonies are often carried out at Shinto shrines, and these are called shiki, or a wedding before the kami. Prior to the Meiji era, weddings were commonly performed in the home, although shrines now regard them as an important source of income. In Japan, funerals tend to take place at Buddhist temples and involve cremation, with Shinto funerals being rare. Bocking noted that most Japanese people are still born Shinto yet die Buddhist, as contact with death is seen as imparting impurity. The period following this contact is known as ketsueki and is associated with various taboos. In cases when dead humans are enshrined as kami, the physical remains of the dead are not stored at the shrine, and although not common, there have been examples of funerals conducted through Shinto rites, with the earliest examples known from the mid-17th century.
History and The Modern State
Shinto ultimately emerged from the beliefs and practices of prehistoric Japan, with the Yayoi period of Japanese prehistory first leaving traces of material and iconography prefiguring that later included in Shinto. In the early 8th century, the Emperor Tenmu commissioned a compilation of the legends and genealogies of Japan's clans, resulting in the completion of the Kojiki in 712, which was designed to legitimate the ruling dynasty. Several years later, the Nihon Shoki was written, and unlike the Kojiki, this made various references to Buddhism, and was aimed at a foreign audience. Both of these texts sought to establish the imperial clan's descent from the sun Amaterasu, although there were many differences in the cosmogonic narrative they provided. From the 8th century onward up until the Meiji era, the kami were incorporated into a Buddhist cosmology in various ways, with one view being that the kami realized that like all other life-forms, they too were trapped in the cycle of samsara. In the Meiji era, Japan's nationalist leadership expelled Buddhist influence from worship and formed State Shinto, which some historians regard as the origin of Shinto as a distinct religion. Following Japan's defeat in World War II, Shinto was formally separated from the state, and the emperor was declared a human rather than a kami. Today, Shinto is primarily found in Japan, where there are around 100,000 public shrines, although practitioners are also found abroad, and numerically, it is Japan's largest religion, the second being Buddhism.