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Primary source material This book, from the series Primary Sources: Historical Books of the World (Asia and Far East Collection), represents an important historical artifact on Asian history and culture. Its contents come from the legions of academic literature and research on the subject produced over the last several hundred years. Covered within is a discussion drawn from many areas of study and research on the subject. From analyses of the varied geography that encompasses the Asian contine...

Bringing together the innovative work of scholars from a variety of disciplines, Matsuri and Religion explores festivals in Japan through their interconnectedness to religious life in both urban and rural communities. Each chapter, informed by extensive ethnographic engagement, focuses on a specific festival to unpack the role of religion in collective ritualized activities. With attention to contemporary performance and historical transformation, the study sheds light on understandings of chang...

The Japanese Middle Ages were a period when forms of secrecy dominated religious practice. This fascinating collection traces out the secret characteristics and practices in Japanese religion, as well as analyzing the decline of religious esotericism in Japan. The essays in this impressive work refer to Esoteric Buddhism as the core of Japan's "culture of secrecy". Esoteric Buddhism developed in almost all Buddhist countries of Asia, but it was of particular importance in Japan where its impac...

The subject of this volume is the historical development of shinto and national thought in premodern and modern Japan. After examining the first instances of shinto-confucian syncretism in the early Edo period, the author investigates the function of shinto as a religious system to legitimize political power and explores how during the late Edo period this culminates in the concept of a specific Japanese national polity(kokutai). Though the main caesurae in the process of modern Japanese history...

Take a step back in time to the origins of Japan's creation myth told here for the very first time in illustrated form. In the beginning there was nothing a void. Then the heavens and the earth took shape, as the ancient gods of Japan breathed the first sparks of life into these islands. The 1300 year-old Kojiki myth traces the beginnings of the Japanese people, following the rise of the Japanese islands from their humble origins as a lump of clay to a great nation that would one day take its r...

Of Japan's two great religious traditions, Shinto is far less known and understood in the West. Although there are a number of books that explain the religion and its philosophy, this work is the first in English to focus on sites where Shinto has been practised since the dawn of Japanese history. In an extensive introductory section, authors Joseph Cali and John Dougill delve into the fascinating aspects of Shinto, clarifying its relationship with Buddhism as well as its customs, symbolism, and...

A unique and comprehensive collection of photographs that capture all the ceremonies that mark the ritual restoration of the Ise Grand Shrine, one of the most important and profound symbols of Japanese society. Architecture and religion come together in this never-before-published record of Japanese culture. The book presents the 63rd restoration of the Shrine, beautifully captured by photographs of all the ritual ceremonies, along with descriptive texts. The restoration of the sanctuary takes...

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Discusses the mythology of Japan, its origins in Shintoism and Buddhism, and the gods, spirits, men, and animals that appear in the many legends and stories.

Written by imperial command in the eighth century, The Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters is Japan's classic of classics, the oldest connected literary work and the fundamental scripture of Shinto. A more factual history called the Nihongi or Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan) was completed in A.D. 720, but The Kojiki remains the better known, perhaps because of its special concern with the legends of the gods, with the divine descent of the imperial family, and with native Shinto. Both works hav...

This volume investigates and present the salient features of Shinto through a long history of development from its remote past up to the present. It is a historical study of Shinto from a scientific point of view, illustrating the higher aspects of the religion, compile on strict lines of religious comparison.

This volume presents the only English translation of the prayers of Japan's indigenous religious tradition, Shinto. These prayers, norito, are works of religious literature that are basic to our understanding of Japanese religious history. Locating Donald Philippi as one of a small number of scholars who have developed a perceptive approach to the problem of "hermeneutical distance" in dealing with ancient or foreign texts, Joseph M. Kitagawa recalls Mircea Eliade's observation that "most of the...