The earliest written tradition regarding kami worship was recorded in the 8th-century Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. The kami came to be viewed as part of Buddhist cosmology and were increasingly depicted anthropomorphically. Religious syncretization made kami worship and Buddhism functionally inseparable, a process called shinbutsu-shūgō. Buddhism entered Japan at the end of the Kofun period (300 to 538 CE) and spread rapidly.

The religion has no single creator or specific doctrine, and instead exists in a diverse range of local and regional forms.Īlthough historians debate at what point it is suitable to refer to Shinto as a distinct religion, kami veneration has been traced back to Japan's Yayoi period (300 BCE to 300 CE). Little emphasis is placed on specific moral codes or particular afterlife beliefs, although the dead are deemed capable of becoming kami. Shinto places a major conceptual focus on ensuring purity, largely by cleaning practices such as ritual washing and bathing, especially before worship. Public shrines facilitate forms of divination and supply religious objects, such as amulets, to the religion's adherents. Other common rituals include the kagura dances, rites of passage, and seasonal festivals. This is done to cultivate harmony between humans and kami and to solicit the latter's blessing. The latter are staffed by priests, known as kannushi, who oversee offerings of food and drink to the specific kami enshrined at that location. The kami are worshipped at kamidana household shrines, family shrines, and jinja public shrines. The kami are believed to inhabit all things, including forces of nature and prominent landscape locations. There is no central authority in control of Shinto, with much diversity of belief and practice evident among practitioners.Ī polytheistic and animistic religion, Shinto revolves around supernatural entities called the kami (神). Scholars sometimes call its practitioners Shintoists, although adherents rarely use that term themselves. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Shinto ( Japanese: 神道, romanized: Shintō) is a religion from Japan. Torii mark the entrance to Shinto shrines and are recognizable symbols of the religion. The torii gateway to the Itsukushima Shrine in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, one of the most famous examples of torii in the country.

Japanese kami shinto