Before Shinto
Buddhism and the Japanese Gods
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Description
Focusing on the fundamental role played by Buddhism in shaping general ideas about and attitudes toward the Japanese gods (kami), this book presents a new revisionist history of Shinto.
Based on in-depth historical and cultural analysis and presenting numerous pre-modern sources in English translation, Before Shinto goes against received assumptions that something called “Shinto” has always existed in Japan as a foundation upon which religions and philosophies of foreign origin were first accepted and them developed. Rather, it demonstrates that Buddhism, in a complex process of assimilation of pre-existing forms of the sacred combined with Indian divinities, created narratives and representations of the kami, which were until then mostly anonymous and invisible, before adding them to its vast cosmology of gods and meta-human beings.
Shinto emerged as a separate tradition around the sixteenth century as part of a conscious movement away from Buddhism; within this newly emerged framework to envision the gods, different interventions, by Confucian and by Nativist authors, in particular, became possible. Fabio Rambelli details how in the modern period, Shinto, now definitely separate and distinct from Buddhism, has turned into a central element of Japanese nationalism first and cultural identity later.
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Notes for the Reader
Preface
Introduction: Buddhism, Shinto, and the Kami
Part I: Buddhism and Local Gods
1. The Kami Encounter Buddhism
Part II: In and Out of Buddhism
2. The Dangerous Kami Called Buddha
3. Japan as the Land of the Kami
4. Buddhism, the Kami, and the Origin of the Universe
5. The Ritual World of Buddhist Kami
6. Origins of Non-Buddhist Discourses on the Kami
Part III: New Kami Discourses
7. The Kami in a Fragmented World: The Emergence of Shinto
8. Conclusion: Floating Signifiers: Alternative Discourses on Kami
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Product details
| Published | 15 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 304 |
| ISBN | 9781350640993 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 8 bw illus |
| Series | Bloomsbury Shinto Studies |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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