Encyclopedia of Shinto

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詳細表示 (Complete Article)

カテゴリー1： 1. General Introduction
カテゴリー2： History of Shrines and Shinto
Title
4. Modern and Contemporary Shinto | 近現代の神道
Text —Two Transformations —
Shintō experienced enormous changes entering the modern period. We can broadly sort out these changes into two categories. The first may be best understood as emerging from the slipstream of political change, while the second developed out of the new currents then forming in the religious world. Turning first to the repercussions of political change, the modern period saw two enormous political transformations: the Meiji Restoration and the administrative reforms following World War II. Through such actions as adopting a policy aimed at separating Buddhism and Shintō (shinbutsu bunri), providing state support for shrine Shintō, and trying to establish a modern imperial institution, the Meiji government had a varied impact impact on the Shintō world. The effect was to launch modern Shrine Shintō down a path that was very different from that of Shintō of the early modern period. The formation of a new current of Shintō sects (see Shintō-Derived Religious Groups) also accelerated rapidly. The various administrative reforms adopted in the immediate aftermath of World War II such as freedom of religion and the separation of religion from the state likewise had a tremendous impact. The most important change of all was the placing of Shintō on the same footing as other religions by forcing shrines to become religious juridical persons under the Religious Corporations Ordinance and, later, the Religious Corporations Law (see Shūkyō Hojinrei, Shūkyō Hōjinhō). Next, it should be pointed out that many new Shintō sects and Shintō-derived new religions came into being starting around the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate. This had the effect of dramatically redrawing, the religious landscape that had come to characterize early modern Japan. Moreover, both shrine Shintō and sectarian Shintō began to head overseas in the modern period; this phenomenon, too, was previously unknown. Various folk Shintō elements such as customs, lifecycle rituals, and annual events were also compelled to change little bit little throughout the modern period owing to the changes in patterns of everyday life that came with urbanization and industrialization. At the end of the Edo period, the agricultural population is said to have comprised eighty percent of Japan's total, but that figure has shrunk in recent years to less than ten percent. Folk Shintō, which was deeply connected to the culture of rice growing, is gradually losing its original substance as a result. The phenomenon of festivals turning into civic pageants and losing their religious meaning is also readily apparent. But this does not mean that communities and local society are losing their functions. Festivals remain one of the most significant features of Shintō and furthermore of Japanese culture. The elements of folk Shintō have shown that, amid the process of modernization, they remain all the more deeply rooted.

—Reform of Ritual Administration and the Shrine System —
Established by the Ōsei Fukkō edict of 1867 (ninth day, twelfth month), the Meiji government swiftly formulated a series of policies aimed at perpetuating and expanding the late Edo-period movement to reestablish the Department of Divinities (see Jingikan) and promote Shintō thought. In the first month of 1868 the government established the Shintō Section (Jingi Jimuka)—arguably the starting point for the Meiji Department of Divinities (Meiji Jingikan)—as one of the seven agencies and three bureaus that made up the new government's central institutions. The following month, the Shintō Section was expanded into the Bureau of Divinities (Jingi Jimukyoku). The bureau was led by the heads of the Yoshida and Shirakawa families, the traditional lineages of kami ritualists (jingidōke); other appointments included Hirata Nobutane from the Hirata faction of National Learning (Kokugaku) and Fukuba Yoshishizu of the Ōkuni faction. The bureau worked to implement the separation of Buddhism from Shintō and institute a policy that would unify administrative control of shrines nationwide. The shinbutsu bunri policy and the centralization of control under the Jingi Jimukyoku and provincial government offices brought about enormous changes to the traditional shrine systems and patterns that had long prevailed prior to the Meiji Restoration. According to the separation order, all Buddhist elements were to be removed from shrines, and "shrine monks" (shasō) and supervising Buddhist priests (bettō) were removed from shrine leadership. Honji suijaku and other forms of "non-Shintō" thought and doctrine were eliminated from shrines. Also, the Meiji government, which had adopted "unification of rites and rule" (saisei itchi) as its political ethos, sought to restore the Department of Divinities. It revived the existing system through which the Yoshida, Shirakawa, and other noble houses issued official licenses to and controlled the nation's shrines and declared that the Jingikan would assume complete jurisdiction over all these matters. The Yoshida and Shirakawa houses, which had once controlled the nation's shrines as the traditional jingidōke, thus lost the authority and privileges that had once been theirs. The Jingi Jimukyoku was upgraded again in 1868 and given the status of Jingikan, putting it on par with the Department of State (Dajōkan). Arguably, creating this "Meiji Jingikan" amounted to a revival of the Jingikan of the ancient ritsuryō state, but the ideal of the "unity of rites and rule" could not be sustained in the new age. The Jingikan leaders came to strongly believe that the true form of the "unity of rites and rule" should entail Dajōkan officials also conducting rituals as part of government, rather than see the Jingikan and the Dajōkan operate in parallel. Behind that lay the circumstances of the Jingikan having taken charge of performing not only traditional rituals but also the newly created imperial rituals and the work of the Religious Instructors (senkyōshi) charted with the Shintō indoctrination of the population (see taikyō senpu)—all activities intimately related to the issue of governing under the new imperial system. It was only natural for the emperor himself to conduct imperial rites, and the Jingikan itself concluded that seizure and control of the local shrines that served as bases for the indoctrination effort could not be achieved without political connections. This view came to prevail throughout the government and, on the eighth day of the eighth month of 1871, the Jingikan was demoted in status and reorganized as the Jingishō, a ministry under the Dajōkan. In the ninth month, the spirits of the imperial ancestors that had been enshrined in the Jingikan were transferred to the palace. These measures accelerated the moves to concentrate rites within the palace and put national indoctrination under the jurisdiction of government agencies specializing in religious affairs, including Buddhism. The Jingishō and Office of Indoctrination were abolished in the third month of 1872, and national rites were separated from indoctrination activities, with rites being transferred to the Office of Ritual (Shikiburyō). Shrine and ritual system reforms were implemented from the latter half of 1870 as a prelude to this transfer to the Shikiburyō. In the fifth month of 1871, the practice of hereditary succession by shrine priests (shinkan) was prohibited and an integrated system of shrine ranks (kindai shakaku seido) implemented, and shrines were explicitly declared to be "ritual fundaments of the state." Based on the new shrine system that resulted from the abolition of hereditary priestly succession, a new set of uniform laws for ritual liturgies—the Shiji Saiten Teisoku (Rules for Imperial Rituals of the Four Seasons) and Chihō Saiten Teisoku (Rules for Regional Rituals)—was instituted for shrines nationwide, thus laying the cornerstone for the modern system of rites at shrines and the imperial palace. Thus, the shrine and ritual systems had changed greatly by 1871, and the first steps taken toward establishing modern shrine Shintō.

—The Debate over Whether Shintō Is a Religion, and the Movement to Revive the Jingikan —
Thereafter shrines were administered by the Ministry of Religious Education (Kyōbushō). National and Imperial shrines (kankoku heisha, see kindai shakaku seido) were supported by public funds and could more or less maintain their finances and stature as "ritual fundaments of the state." Shrines ranked as Prefectural Shrines and below, however, were ordered to return their lands to the throne under the shrine lands edict (Jōchirei) of 1871, thus losing their independent bases of economic support. Moreover, previous tax-relief measures directed toward shrine lands were phased out over a period of ten years. Priests' salaries were abolished in 1873, and the economic situation of shrines at the prefectural level and below became increasingly desperate. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Religious Education (Kyōbushō) had jurisdiction over not only shrine administration but also the Office of Preceptors (kyōdōshoku; see taikyō senpu), which consisted of unpaid religious teachers affiliated with Shintō shrines, with Buddhism, or sometimes no religious affiliation who it appointed to pursue indoctrination of the people. However, the idea arose from Shimaji Mokurai (1838-1911) and others on the Buddhist side that, viewed in light of the principles of the separation of Buddhism and Shintō, it was inappropriate for shrine priests, particularly those of imperial shrines, to engage in the same religious activities as Buddhist priests. The government, too, gradually began to take the position that, from the perspective of separation of religion from state and the freedom of religious belief, involving shrine priests in such religious activity was undesirable. As a result, the government abolished the Kyōbushō in 1877 and transferred its work to the Bureau of Temples and Shrines (Shajikyoku) within the Home Ministry. These measures brought the government closer to Shimaji Mokurai and his fellows' position that Shintō is not a religion, a trend that was accelerated all the more by the so-called "pantheon dispute" (saijin ronsō) that arose within the Shintō Office (Shintō Jimukyoku). The government came to the conclusion that it was socially and politically inconvenient to have priests at shrines being promoted as "ritual fundaments of the state—particularly high-ranking shrines like Ise Jingū and Izumo Taisha—to be endlessly embroiled in religious debate. In January 1882 priests of national and imperial shrines were prohibited from working concurrently as religious preceptors (kyōdōshoku) and were also prohibited from participating in funerals. These measures led priests like Senge Takatomi, gūji of Izumo Taisha, and others who wanted to further develop Shintō as a religion to break away from the ranks of Ise Jingū and other imperial and national shrines and promulgate Shintō through sects of their own devising. Having divorced shrine priests from the office of moral preceptors (kyōdōshoku; see taikyō senpu) and adopted the position that Shintō was not a religion, the government turned it attention toward policies that further weakened the relation between shrines and the state. In 1885, it resolved to introduce a system of "maintenance funds" for national and imperial shrines. Under it, the government would abolish fixed expenditures from the national treasury for imperial and national shrines and provide for an endowment of "maintenance funds" for ten years; it was assumed that shrines would apply their endowments so that public funding could come to an end with the eleventh year. The system was implemented in 1887, with an agreement to extend the system of maintenance funds from ten to fifteen years (in 1890 the period was reextended to thirty years). It is clear that the government intended the system of "maintenance funds" as a means for cutting the relationship between the state and imperial and national shrines; that position was reinforced by the 1887 decision to abolish the special status of "imperial-national shrine priest" (kankoku heisha shinkan) and reduce such priests to the status of regular government employees. Like so, the government moved to cut off all shrines—not merely prefectural and lower shrines, but even imperial and national shrines other than the Grand Shrines of Ise—from the state. However, fierce opposition was expressed from the side of certain high officials and politicians who were aligned with shrine priests and Shintō, and a nationwide movement emerged to reinstitute the Jingikan. On April 27, 1900, the government abolished the Bureau of Shrines and Temples (Shajikyoku) and in its place established a Bureau of Shrines (Jinjakyoku) alongside a Bureau of Religion (Shūkyōkyoku). This development basically represented a success for the movement to revive the Jingikan.

—The Implementation of the Shrine System and Establishment of the Jingiin —
The shrine world formed alliances with politicians to promote a movement to abolish the system of "maintenance funds" at national and imperial shrines and introduce a system of official offerings (see shinsen and heihaku) to improve the situation of shrines at the prefectural level and below. The system of "maintenance funds" was finally abolished on April 7, 1906, and the rites at imperial and national shrines were thereafter funded from the national treasury. In the same year a system was established for shrines at the prefectural level and below to receive offerings from their respective prefectures and metropolitan governments. Together with the establishment of the Jinjakyoku (Shrine Bureau), the implementation of these two ordinances furthered the completion of the modern shrine system and led to the passage of two other laws, the first regulating rites at the Grand Shrines of Ise and the second regulating rites at other shrines (both enacted January 26, 1914). However, the government's desire to reconcile the dignity of the shrines with economic rationality lay in the shadows of the move to complete the modern shrine system. The upshot was an unprecedented program of nationwide "shrine mergers" (jinja gōshi) from the end of Meiji through the Taishō periods that resulted in the closure of about one-half of the 200,000 shrines previously in existence. Through these preparations of the modern shrine system it became possible to establish a legal basis for the concept of shrines as representing "ritual fundaments of the state." In actual fact, however, maintaining shrines below the imperial and national level—so-called "people's shrines" (minsha)—was difficult, and they found themselves in a situation where they could not survive if they did not engage in the same sort of religious activities as other religions to support the shrine. For this reason, organizations like the Buddhist sect Jōdo Shinshū used the government's position that "shrines were not religious"as a pretext to press enjoining shrines from engaging in religious activities of any sort, and a debate fiercely unfolded over the religious nature of Shintō shrines. The government entered into an investigation of the current shrine system to resolve this situation. It established the Shrine System Investigation Committee (Jinja Seido Chōsakai) in 1929, which conducted debates over the relation between the shrines and religion and preparing a system of shrines for war dead. Consensus was not achieved, however, and the only results of the committee's work were to petition the government to rename previous shōkonsha shrines ("shrines to invite the spirits of the dead") to gokoku jinja ("shrines for national protection") in 1939, and to establish the Institute of Divinities (Jingiin) in 1940. The government tried to carry out a thoroughgoing review of and the work to perfect the shrine system through the newly established Jingiin, but Japan was already at war and defeat came in due course in August 1945 without it being able to pursue the work it had hoped to.

—The Establishment of the Association of Shintō Shrines (Jinja Honchō) and Contemporary Shrine Shintō —
With defeat, Japan was occupied by the Allies. The Occupation forces enacted a variety democraticization policies designed to rid Japan of militarism and extreme nationalism. This was applied to Shrine Shintō as well. The Occupation forces issued the Shintō Directive (Shintō shirei) on December 15, 1945, decreeing the separation of shrines from the state. The effect of this Directive was to abolish all massive number of shrine-related laws issued since the 1871 declaration that "shrines are the ritual fundaments of the state." This marked the destruction of the State Shintō system. Divested from state control, shrines reconstituted themselves as religious corporations under the newly promulgated Religious Corporations Ordinance (Shūkyō Hōjinrei). To unite all the nation's shrines further in their common purpose, the Dai-Nihon Jingikai, Kōten Kōkyūsho, and Jingū Hōsaikai were dissolved to pave the way for establishing on February 3, 1946, the Association of Shintō Shrines (Jinja Honchō). Thereafter, shrines were required to operate under a completely different system than before the war, and for a time they faced extremely difficult economic conditions. Then in 1953, the entire shrine world devoted its collective efforts to the fifty-ninth Regular Removal of the Grand Shrines of Ise (shikinen sengū), the successful completion of which they seized as an opportunity for recovery. Japanese living conditions began to stabilize in the mid-1950s, and many shrines saw repairs and improvements carried out that went beyond prewar levels. Also, shrines found themselves actively engaged in religious activities such as Shintō funerals (shinsōsai) that had been severely restricted before the war. The renewed popularity of Shintō weddings (shinzen kekkon) and assorted intercessory rites (kitō) resulted in the shrines coming into prosperity beyond that of their prewar forebears. In addition, goals and campaigns common to the entire shrine world were advanced with the Jinja Honchō in the vanguard; campaigns were waged to confirm the official character of the Grand Shrines of Ise, reinstitute the National Founding Day (Kigensetsu), and codify the system of dating based on imperial reign names (gengō hōseika). Looking at the shifts in the subsequent scheme of things, we can say that the objectives of these various campaigns were to some degree achieved. Thus, the era of high-speed economic growth that began in the early 1960s had a positive impact on many shrines, but on the other hand shrines found themselves coming to grips with the problems of advancing urbanization and its reverse—rural depopulation—attendant with high-speed growth. At shrines in depopulated areas falling numbers of parishioners (ujiko) and the difficulty of finding priestly successors have become severe problems, while urban shrines have had to cope with such issues as uncertainty and instabilty in the parshioner population owing to the exceptional frequency with which residents move around, worsening shrine environments due to urban development, and the massive growth of the parishioner base at famous shrines. Thus, contemporary shrines have been pressured by various problems that they still face today.

—Sectarian Shintō and Shintō-Derived New Religions —
Compared to the Buddhist sects, Shintō saw little progress in the way of institutionalization up to the early modern period. There was a tendency for Shintō based on priestly lineages (shake Shintō) to be transmitted secretly, while Restoration Shintō (Fukko Shintō) had developed entirely as an intellectual movement. The institutionalization effected by the Yoshida and Shirakawa houses—especially the developments in Yoshida Shintō during the Edo period—can be said to have laid the groundwork to a certain extent for the transition to Shintō sectarian organizations, but this fell short of a genuine organized religion. In the modern period, on the other hand, numerous distinct sectarian institutions made their appearance. This was made possible by numerous religious historical developments in the early modern period. First, it is significant that in the areas of doctrine and ethics, discussion of Shintō teachings was carried out widely among the samurai and merchant classes and among regional leaders, through the influence of National Learning (Kokugaku) and Restoration Shintō. On the organizational front, it is also significant that cults devoted to mountain worship, such as of Mt. Fuji (Fuji shinkō) and Mt. Ontake (Ontake shinkō), led to the establishment of "confraternities" (see kō) like Fuji-kō or "Ontake-kō," and thus sank deep roots into provincial society as organized religious groups. Amidst this, such personages as Kurozumi Munetada, founder of Kurozumikyō, Inoue Masakane, founder of Misogikyō, and Nitta Kuniteru, founder of Shintō Shūseiha, began carrying out specifically religious activities. Their movements themselves had a variety of influences on later religious movements as well. These religious historical developments, coupled with the government's religious policies during the Meiji period, led to the establishment of a framework for sectarian Shintō in short order. The expression "sectarian Shintō" (kyōha Shintō) is conventionally used to refer to "the thirteen sects of Shintō" (see "Shintō-Derived Religions"), but recent proposals have been made to divide Shintō-based religious groups into "sectarian Shintō" and "Shintō-derived new religions." Within this framework, "sectarian Shintō" would refer to a type of Shintō organization that developed in the modern period based on Shintō thought influenced by Restoration Shintō and other Shintō thought of the Edo period, and with deep connections to the conventional Shintō practiced at shrines (so-called shrine Shintō). In contrast, Shintō-derived new religions, while clearly influenced by Shintō traditions, would be organizations more typified by the uniquely charismatic character of their founders, and thus display more the nature of creative "founder religions." Following this typology, "sectarian Shintō" would consitute most of the thirteen sects plus several sects not included in the original thirteen, such as Jingūkyō and Izumokyō. On the other hand, organizations among the thirteen like Konkōkyō and Tenrikyō it is thought would more appropriately be considered Shintō-derived new religions. While sectarian Shintō reached its peak in the early Meiji period and its groups developed widespread organizations, by late Meiji most groups had either stagnated or greatly declined and lost their social influence. In contrast, it was the Shintō-derived new religions that gained in social influence from the late Meiji period. The appearance of Shintō-derived new religions was the greatest change in the course of modern Shintō history. This change was grounded in a variety of other changes in modern Japanese society. That is to say, changes in industrial structure, urbanization, the spread of public education, and the existence of many social contradictions arising from the process of modernization are connected to the appearance of Shintō-derived new religions, and furthermore of new relgions in general. There are many Shintō-derived new religions. The Shinshūkyō jiten (Dictionary of New Religions) lists over 300 new religions, about half of which are derived from Shintō. Since most of the entries deal with existing religions, there is no way of knowing how many movements existed at one time but later died out. Many founders of Shintō-derived new religions had distinctive religious experiences, and they frequently tell of how they became aware of their missions through revelations from kami or spirits, miraculous manifestations, dream revelations and the like. Since these movements develop mainly on the basis of the founder's distinctive religious experiences, they take on a strong revelatory or "founder religion" character.

—Shintō's Overseas Advance —
Lastly, let us address the overseas advance of shrine Shintō and Shintō churches, which began in the mid-Meiji period. We begin with shrine Shintō. In the prewar period, many shrines were constructed on the Korean Peninsula, Sakhalin Island (Karafuto), and in Taiwan and China. These shrines were built in accordance with the shrine system at the time as it operated in areas controlled by Japan. In Taiwan, the Imperial Taiwan Jinja was constructed in 1900, and dozens of shrines including unranked ones (mukakusha) were erected on the island thereafter. Many of the Taiwan shrines were dedicated to Prince Kita Shirakawa Yoshihisa as their object of worship (see saijin). This is because as commander of the Konoe Division he oversaw the invasion of Taiwan and died of illness on the island. Turning to the Korean Peninsula, the Chōsen Jinja was built in Seoul in 1918 and in 1925 was elevated to the status of an Imperial Shrine. Thereafter, more than fifty shrines were built around Korea. On Sakhalin, the Karafuto Imperial Shrine was constructed in 1910 in Yujino Sahalinsk, and numerous other shrines were built throughout the Taishō period (1912-1926). As for Manchuria, the Antō Shrine was built there in 1905, and the number of shrines there increased rapidly after the Manchurian Incident of 1931. Turning elsewhere, many areas of Micronesia and Melanesia became Japanese territories under mandate after the First World War, and shrines were constructed on the islands of Saipan, Palau, Yabu, and Truk. Thus, the construction of shrines in Asia was directly related to the expansion of Japanese-controlled areas. Similarly, shrines were constructed in Hawaii, in North America, and South America before World War II, many in response to requests from Japanese immigrants. In Hawaii, the earliest such cases, immigration began in earnest after the Japanese government signed an agreement with the Hawaiian court in 1895, and numerous shrines were built from around 1900 on the major Hawaiian islands of Maui, Kawai, and Hawaii. This took place at the same time as the advance of Jōdo Shinshū, Jōdo-shū, and other major Buddhist sects to Hawaii, and thus provided an important motivation for those Japanese immigrants who wanted to preserve the customs of their lives in Japan. The Shintō sects and some of the Shintō-derived new religions also conducted overseas proselytization. Of the original thirteen sects, Tenrikyō, Konkōkyō, Shinrikyō, Kurozumikyō, and others had overseas footholds. Those that attempted to proselytize not only in Asia but also in North America and Hawaii included Tenrikyō, Konkōkyo, and Seichō no Ie. Tenrikyō was especially active in this regard; its second-generation leader Nakayama Masayoshi was eager about overseas proselytization, and the group engaged in missionary work methodically. (See also "Shintō-derived religious organizations.")
— Inoue Nobutaka and Sakamoto Koremaru

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