Shinto Beliefs and Traditions

“Born Shinto, Die Buddhist” aptly sums up the relationship between religion and life cycle in contemporary Japan. In a country where exclusive religious affiliation is the exception, not the rule, a generally accepted division of labor exists between Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, with the former hosting such life-affirming events as the blessing of infants and small children and the latter handling funerals and other rituals concerning death. There are two main reasons for this split: (1) Buddhist priests in Japan, as elsewhere in Asia, came to dominate the performance of death rites because their faith provided highly articulated explanations of the afterlife and specific procedures to navigate it; and (2) Japanese have long believed that the native deities worshipped at Shinto shrines—beings called kami, who take the form of natural objects, human-like gods, or deified humans—abhor the pollution (kegare) generated by death.

Concern about this pollution defines, in large part, the contemporary relationship between death and Shinto (meaning “the way of the kami”), so a discussion of its historical basis and ritual consequences follows.

Death Pollution and the Imperial Court

The idea that death is polluting extends back into ancient times. A Chinese record dating to the 3rd century notes that the Japanese made a practice of immersing themselves in water after funerals as an act of purification. Concern about the pollution generated by death and measures to combat it also figure prominently in indigenous creation myths, which were not officially compiled and written down by the imperial court until the 8th century, but which had likely circulated in one form or another for many generations.

The most important of these myths concerns Izanagi and Izanami, the male and female kami who together created the islands of Japan. In a stark demonstration of the slippage between mortals and gods characteristic of kami worship, Izanami dies after giving birth to the fire deity and is consigned to Yomi, a gloomy underworld comparable to Hades in Greek mythology. The anguished Izanagi pursues his wife in the futile hope that he can bring her back to the world of the living. Initially welcomed by Izanami on the condition that he not look upon her, Izanagi incurs his dead partner's wrath by lighting a fire and beholding her maggot-ridden, decomposing body. He flees in horror while the shamed Izanami and other denizens of Yomi give chase. Once he escapes into the open, Izanagi stops his pursuers by placing a large boulder in front of the entrance to Yomi, and his estranged wife responds with a curse, heralding the introduction of death into the world of the living. In the wake of his traumatic experience, Izanami declares, “I have been to a most unpleasant land, a horrible, unclean land. Therefore I shall purify myself.” He accordingly performs ablutions in a river, giving birth to more kami in the process. Supreme among them is the sun goddess Amaterasu, progenitor of the imperial line.

Amaterasu's self-proclaimed descendants and the courtiers who surrounded them took for granted that all kami shared Izanami's disgust for death, and thus developed elaborate rules to shield the fastidious deities from it. Regulations established in the Heian period (794–1185 C.E.) required those in mourning, or even those who had simply come in contact with the dead, to refrain from serving the kami for at least a month. The court was particularly strict regarding the imperial shrine [Page 870]at Ise, dedicated to Amaterasu. For most of Japanese history, the worship of deities specific to Japan intertwined with Buddhist teachings and practices—so much so that kami were commonly viewed as the local incarnations of Buddhas and were enshrined in ritual centers that liberally combined indigenous and imported elements. Yet their close involvement with death and its management was one of the main reasons Buddhist clerics were banned entirely from the precincts of the Ise shrine. In fact, anything associated with Buddhism, and by extension death, was barred from Ise, making it a remarkable exception to the prevailing rule of blending the worship of kami and Buddhas.

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