Altered states
Sir: My article on the Yasukuni shrine, as published ('Japan's PM defies a taboo', 10 August), refers to its associations with 'the state religion of Shinto'. What I actually wrote was 'the religion of State Shinto'. The difference is not trivial. Shinto — 'the way of the gods' — is the ancient folk religion of Japan. It was not a state religion. Indeed for centuries emperors and shoguns tended to favour Buddhism at its expense. After the Meiji Restoration (1868) Japanese governments evolved the cult of State Shinto, which was an amalgam of nationalist mythology and civic ethics with Shinto forms. They claimed it was not a religion at all, and forced even Christians to take part in its rites. The Americans abol- ished State Shinto in 1945. Shinto contin- ues as before.
John Casey
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Previous page
