Robert Oxnam :: As
the Japanese adapted Confucian and Buddhist thought, they did not relinquish
their indigenous beliefs. Indeed, during these years the Japanese gave those
beliefs a name.
H. Paul Varley :: When Buddhism was introduced to
Japan during this period of cultural borrowing from the late sixth century that
we've been talking about, the amalgam of native religious beliefs was labeled,
or called, "Shintô." In other words, the word "Shintô" was
created. It's a Chinese type of word. It's written with two characters that mean "the
way of the kami" — kami being the Japanese word for deities.
In Shintô, the Japanese look at nature, in particular the natural beauties
of the Japanese islands, and they have a great love for this. And their art and
their aesthetics, to a large extent, centers on this love of nature. And nature
is inherently good because the kami — the deities — live in nature.
Shintô has
largely been concerned with life and the life processes and passages.
Well, Buddhism comes into the country during the reform period. One might imagine
that Buddhism would just obliterate Shintô, but that wasn't the case. In
fact, the Japanese continued to believe both in Shintô and in Buddhism. |