The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2235 page)

 
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(Jap., ‘the way of the kami’). The indigenous Japanese religious tradition. The term Shinto was coined in the 6th cent. CE, using the Chin. characters
shen
(‘divine being’) and
tao
(‘way’); in the native Japanese reading it is
kami
no michi or
kannagara no michi
. The origins of Shinto are clouded in the mists of the prehistory of Japan, and it has no founder, no official sacred scriptures, and no fixed system of doctrine. As the imperial (Tenn
) clan gained supremacy, its myths also gained ascendancy, providing the dominant motifs into which the myths of the other clans were integrated to some extent. These myths were collected in the two 8th-cent. collections of mythology and early history, the
Kojiki
of 712 (Records of Ancient Matters) and the
Nihongi/Nihonshoki
of 720 (Chronicles of Japan), and they established the basic themes of Shinto, such as the cosmological outlook consisting of a three-level universe, the Plain of High Heaven (
takama-no-hara
), the Manifested World (
utsushi-yo
), and the Nether World (
yomotsu-kuni
); the creation of the world by
Izanagi and Izanami
; the forces of life and fertility, as also of pollution and purification; the dominance of the sun kami
Amaterasu
mikami
; and the descent of the imperial line from Amaterasu. The mythology also established the basic Shinto worship practices, dances, and chanting of
norito
.
In the history of Japan, Shinto has gone through many transformations: the imperial edicts prescribing the national rituals in the 7th cent.; the stratification of the Shinto priesthood; the Institutes of the Engi Era (
Engi
-shiki) regulating Shinto in the 10th cent.; Buddhist influence which resulted in the Shinto-Buddhist amalgamation (
Ry
bu-shint
and Sann
ichijitsu); the influence of
neo-Confucianism
on Shinto; and finally the resurgence of Shinto stimulated by the ‘National Learning’ (
kokugaku
) movement in the 18th and 19th cents. which returned Shinto to its former position as the guiding principle of Japan and provided a theoretical framework for Shinto thought. There still exist in modern Japan several different types of Shinto. The Shinto of the Imperial Household (k
shitsu shint
) focuses on rites for the spirits of imperial ancestors performed by the emperor. Shrine Shinto (jinja shint
) is presently the form of Shinto which embraces the vast majority of Shinto shrines and adherents in Japan, administered by the Association of Shinto Shrines (jinja honch
), State Shinto (
kokka shint
) was created by the Meiji government and continued until the end of the Second World War to control most Shinto shrines and rituals in accordance with the ideological aims of the government. New Shinto movements were designated by the government as Sect Shinto (
ky
ha shint