2o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



SHINTO, THE OLD RELIGION OF JAPAN. 



By NOBUTA KISHIMOTO, M. A. 



DUKING the last twenty years there has heen considerable 

 discussion in Japan, both among native and foreign schol- 

 ars, concerning the real nature of Shinto, the old religion of that 

 country, and this discussion seems to have revolved around two 

 central questions, namely, whether Shinto is a religion or not, 

 and whether it was native to Japan or not. Different answers 

 have been given, and diverse views have been expressed. How- 

 ever, the question whether Shinto was native to Japan or not 

 largely depends upon what do we mean by Shinto, just as the 

 question whether Shinto is a religion or not, depends upon just 

 what we mean by religion. Shinto can not be a religion in the 

 sense that Buddhism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism are, for 

 it has neither code of morals nor system of beliefs, as these sys- 

 tems have. But if we are justified in saying that the rude He- 

 brews of the pre-Mosaic ages had their religion, and the wander- 

 ing Arabs of the ante-Mohammedan centuries also had theirs, in 

 this sense at least there can be nothing improper in the statement 

 that our early forefathers too had their own religion, known later 

 in history as Shinto. 



What is Shinto, then ? one may ask. "What does its name 

 mean ? How old is it ? What is its history ? Is the present 

 Shinto different from its primitive form ? What will be the best 

 method for investigating it ? To answer all these questions with 

 any degree of fullness is not the intention of the present writing 

 indeed, is not possible in such a paper as this. But the writer 

 will venture to answer some of the above questions by presenting 

 certain results of his personal experiences and investigations re- 

 garding this old and yet living religion of his native country. 



The name Shinto consists of the two Chinese words shin and 

 to. The word shin may be either a noun or an adjective, as many 

 Chinese words are. As a noun it means god or gods, and as an 

 adjective it means divine. The word to is the same word with 

 the taou of Taouism, and means primarily ivay or path, and sec- 

 ondarily teaching or doctrine. This is the word by which the 

 Logos of the Gospel according to St. John is rendered in both the 

 Chinese and Japanese versions of the New Testament. Thus, 

 taken by itself, the name Shinto may mean several different 

 things, but as it is ai^plied to the old religion of Japan its mean- 

 ing is quite definite, and can not but be the " way of the gods." 

 We know that the term shin is plural from the fact that the gods 

 of Shinto are very numerous, and also we know the term id is 

 singular from the fact that Shinto as a religion is but one. 



