Page 249 - Islam and Far Eastern Religions

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hintoism is a religion of aberrant traditions in-
digenous to the Japanese people. Essentially it is
the perverse worship of nature, deceased ances-
tors, and literally millions of other beings.

It existed since the oldest times of Japanese
history and prevailed in the superstitious tradi-
tion, worldview, perverted worship and rituals of the native Japanese
population. However, it is not possible to access any written records of
this superstitious religion’s origins, mainly because literacy entered
th
Japan only in the 5 century AD, at which time the Chinese alphabet
was adopted and the first written records appear. Shintoism’s foremost
scriptures, the “Kojik” (The Book of Ancient Things) and “Nihongi” (A
Chronology of Japan) were committed to paper in the 8th century in
the Chinese language.
The word Shinto does not appear before the 6th century and was
only used from the 6th century onwards with the purpose of distin-
guishing Japan’s native religion from Buddhism, which by that time
had entered Japan from China and Korea. Thus a line was drawn be-
tween the two false religions and Japan acquired its national religion
(The word Shinto is formed by the two Chinese words “shin” and
“tao”, meaning the “way of the gods”).
However, Buddhism and Confucianism have had a great influ-

ence over Japanese culture. As a consequence of the dealings between
the Japanese and the kingdoms of the Korean peninsula, Chinese influ-
ences reached Japan. Japanese aristocracy revered the Buddha from the
7th and 8th century onwards, promoted Buddhism, built Buddhist
temples and thus this religion spread rapidly in society. Confucianism
was also promoted by the Japanese empire, which offered it as an eth-