Through the looking glass
The imperial succession highlights Shinto’s muddled status in Japan
It is not an official state religion, but it’s hard to escape from it
ON THE MORNING of April 30th, then-emperor Akihito, decked out in a puffy brown robe, entered Kashikodokoro shrine, in the grounds of the imperial palace in Tokyo. He washed his hands, rinsed his mouth, bowed twice, clapped twice, bowed once more and then read a letter to the gods informing them of his retirement. On May 1st his son, Naruhito, was invested as emperor by receiving a jewel and a sword said to have belonged to Amaterasu, the sun goddess, from whom he is a direct descendant, according to Shinto mythology.
Shinto is a form of animism, which dates back to prehistoric times. Ancient Japanese saw divine forces all around them, and celebrated as kami, or gods, everything from the sun to the wind. The emperor was traditionally the high priest—although after the second world war, he was stripped of his status as a living god. There are some 80,000 Shinto shrines, all over Japan, where priests and devotees can be seen clapping and bowing like Akihito.
Some 70% of Japanese are reported to adhere to Shinto—a percentage that is declining only slowly. That may be because many see it as a cultural belief rather than a religion. People who do not consider themselves religious may still visit a shrine in search of luck or love, or to attend Shinto festivals that involve lots of food and drink. Indeed, many Buddhists and Christians visit Shinto shrines.
It helps that Shinto has no scriptures or doctrine. “It is a way of thinking, of living; it is in Japanese people’s DNA,” says Tsunekiyo Tanaka, the head priest at Iwashimizu Hachimangu, a shrine near Kyoto, and head of Jinja Honcho, an umbrella organisation for the religion. It is indeed a part of everyday life. Many people perform a Shinto ground-breaking ceremony to appease the kami before beginning construction work. Sumo matches involve Shinto rituals that take up more time than the wrestling. Marie Kondo, a Japanese tidying guru, is said to be inspired by Shinto’s emphasis on process and ritual. She worked as a shrine “maiden” for five years.
Those of a new-age disposition see shrines as “power-spots” brimming with healing, love and insight. Satoru Otowa of Ise Grand shrine, Shinto’s holiest place, where a mirror said to have belonged to Amaterasu is kept, says many young people come for “mental health and to feel at peace”. On a spring day groups of them can be seen exploring the vast grounds of the shrine, which is surrounded by trees and a river. Visitor numbers have steadily grown, to more than 8.5m people last year.
Environmentalism has helped Shinto, says Susumu Shimazono of Sophia University: “A few years ago Shinto was seen as inferior to the great world religions, like Christianity, Buddhism and Islam, where the sacred dimension is beyond nature,” he says. “Now it is seen as something we should recover.”
But the picture is not all rosy. The number of shrines is in slow but steady decline. Many are nestled in small rural communities that are populated mainly by old people, since the young tend to move to cities. The number of priests has dropped more drastically, from 88,192 in 1997 to 71,142 in 2017. As the shrinking and ageing of Japan’s population accelerates, these problems will get worse.
Another tension is the still contentious question of Shinto’s official role. After the second world war the American occupiers insisted on the separation of shrine and state, since Shinto had been a central part of Japan’s war effort, in which the cult of the divine emperor served to legitimise militarism. The state stopped administering and funding shrines, leaving private organisations, most notably Jinja Honcho, to assume that role.
But Shinto is still a big part of official events such as this week’s abdication and coronation. Indignant citizens have brought lawsuits claiming that the imperial rituals violate the separation of religion and state (similar complaints during the last change of emperor were dismissed by the courts). Even the new emperor’s brother, who is also the next in line to the throne, has questioned whether state funds should be used for an elaborate ceremony later this year at which the new emperor’s investiture will be celebrated. The emperor’s sister, meanwhile, is the head priest of the Ise shrine—a job that always goes to a member of the royal family.
Some would like to restore the central role of Shinto in public life. A few priests talk fondly of reviving the idea of the emperor as a god. “It is unclear whether the Japanese view the emperor as a kami, a nice person or an ojisan [uncle],” gripes a priest who believes the first.
Mark Mullins of the University of Auckland is sympathetic to those who argue against a pedantic separation of Shinto from state affairs. “Look at America and you see the Bible and prayers coming out at every inauguration,” he notes. But the association of the religion with right-wing nationalism is a cause for concern, he argues.
That is largely thanks to Jinja Honcho, which lobbies for conservative causes, for the sake “of our nation and nationhood”, as Mr Tanaka puts it. That includes revising school textbooks to whitewash Japan’s conduct in the second world war, allowing the armed forces greater freedom of operation despite Japan’s official pacifism and resisting moves to amend a law that requires married couples to share a surname, a measure that in practice prevents married women from keeping their maiden names. (Past successes include defending the use of gengo, dates based on imperial reigns, in most official documents.)
Some politicians like these ideas. Jinja Honcho has many supporters in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Their number has grown under the current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who is an avowed nationalist and has prayed at the Yasukuni shrine, where war criminals are enshrined as kami. When he began his second stint in office in 2012, Mr Mullins notes, 204 members of the Diet were in Jinja Honcho’s parliamentary arm; now 294 are.
The general public is not so keen. Mr Tanaka admits that many of the firms that fund the association dislike its involvement in politics. Surveys suggest that most Japanese do not support its pet causes. Many priests seem to be similarly sceptical, even at the Ise shrine. Mr Otowa does not overtly criticise Jinja Honcho, but he does talk about how women used to have a much bigger role in Shinto. At most shrines, says Koji Suga of Kokugakuin University in Tokyo, who is also a part-time priest, the staff are not ideological: “They sweep and wait for people to come.”
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Through the looking glass" (May 2nd 2019)
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