Pages |
There is an infinite number of kamisama having purview over all domains of human existence. Some kamisama are relevant to specific concerns, such as Yama no kami, the mountain god that is called on for assistance in matters of fertility of humans, the live stock, and the farm crops, especially rice. The Yama no kami is also prayed to for safe and successful childbirth. However, these deities of concern in particular situations also have broad and general functions and may serve as the patron deities for local communities in all matters of importance for the people. Shrines where people go to worship the deities may have several deities, and include both Shintō kamisama and bodhisattvas from Buddhism. Many worshipers at shrines do not know the deities they are addressing, and rarely if ever see the icons or statues inside that represent the deities and provide a physical form to the spiritual being or power. There also may be confusion about whether a deity is Shintō or Buddhist. However, there is no confusion in the need to give ritual attention to the deities in the shrines, whatever the traditions those deities may stem from.
State Shintō and the Emperor
Sometimes scholars distinguish State Shintō from Folk Shintō. State Shintō relates to the origin myth, the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters) of A.D. 712, and the emperor, who is assumed to be the direct descendant of Amaterasu Ōmikami, the Sun Goddess, supreme among the many deities described in the Kojiki. It is the Kojiki that gives justification to the high position of emperor as head of the Japanese state. It is possible that in the five hundred years before the Kojiki was written a number of tribes were competing for political and military supremacy of the Japanese archipelago, and that ultimately the Yamato clan, ancestral to the mainstream Japanese population, emerged victorious. Kojiki gives textual validation to the political supremacy of the Yamato over its competitors and provides sacred support for the emperor as the spiritual and political leader.
The position of the emperor has varied over the past 1500 years. At times both military and political power were held by the emperor, and at other times military power was held by the warrior class, e.g., the Shogun. However, even when a particular domain lord achieved control over most of Japan through military conquest, such as Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), who defeated his competitors in the sixteenth century to unify the country, a pilgrimage to the emperor to receive the affirmation as Shogun, military ruler of all of Japan, was necessary.
In 1868 the Tokugawa family was removed from political power, and the emperor again became the sovereign of Japan. The Meiji Restoration of 1868, a nearly bloodless revolution, was brought about because of widespread dissatisfaction with the Tokugawa regime's impotence in the face of foreign threats. The young samurai participating in the Restoration were prime movers in the formation of a new government in 1868. These young samurai had valuable experiences in the governance of their own feudal domains and constituted a highly competent and experienced bureaucratic class that, with Emperor Meiji at the helm, formed a new constitutional government that accelerated the move of Japan toward greater modernization.
Pages |