The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji

The work traces the development of religious belief in Japan from prehistoric nature worship through the institutional forms that accompanied state formation up to the Meiji era. It surveys native kami practices and shrines, the arrival and adaptation of Buddhism, and the infusion of Confucian ethical ideas into governance and education. It describes rituals, priesthoods, popular festivals, and the frequent blending of traditions rather than rigid separations. It examines the effects of foreign scholarship, missionary contact, and modernization on religious institutions and public practice in the late nineteenth century. The account seeks to show continuity and change in Japanese religious life across centuries.