Shinto: Kami, Shrines, and Japanese Identity

Shinto, often translated "the way of the kami," has no identifiable founder and no single foundational scripture, developing instead from prehistoric animistic and agricultural beliefs native to the Japanese archipelago. Its central concept is the kami, a broad category of sacred spirits or forces that can inhabit mountains, rivers, trees, storms, ancestors, and extraordinary people alike; kami are neither uniformly benevolent nor omnipotent but are understood as powers meriting reverence, propitiation, and ritual attention. The very term "Shinto" (from Chinese shen dao, "way of the spirits") came into use only after the introduction of Buddhism to Japan in the sixth century CE, precisely because the arrival of a clearly defined foreign religion created the conceptual need to name and distinguish Japan’s indigenous religious practices, which had not previously required a unifying label.