print | close Religion

Introduction

Wellsprings of Japanese Spirituality: Shintô and Buddhism

The Japanese religious tradition is rich and complex, encompassing within it both complementary and contradictory trends in religious thought and practice with an ease that may occasionally puzzle the Western observer. At the very heart of the tradition stand Shintô, the indigenous religion of Japan, and Buddhism, the Indian religion that reached Japan in the sixth through eighth centuries A.D. from Korea and China. Throughout the long course of Japanese history, it has been these two religions that have contributed most to the Japanese people's understanding of themselves and their world.

Philosophy in Japan: Confucianism

Confucian thought was studied first by Japanese scholars in the seventh and eighth centuries, and its influence can be seen in one of the first political documents in Japan, the Constitution of Prince Shôtoku. A later adaptation of Confucianism - Neo-Confucianism - became a source of social and educational philosophy in the early seventeenth century. Neo-Confucian texts formed the basic curriculum as popular education spread throughout the Tokugawa period.