USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Yayoi culture, which originated in the northern area of the island of Kyushu in about the 3rd or 2nd century bce, is directly related to later Japanese culture and hence to Shintō. Among the primary Yayoi religious phenomena were agricultural rites and shamanism.

Detailed explanation-2: -During the Meiji era (1868 to 1912), Japan’s nationalist leadership expelled Buddhist influence from kami worship and formed State Shinto, which some historians regard as the origin of Shinto as a distinct religion.

Detailed explanation-3: -Shinto or shintoism is Japan’s oldest religion, dating back to the Yayoi period (200 BCE – 250 CE).

Detailed explanation-4: -II. At the end of the 8th and the beginning of the 9th centuries, the celebrated Japanese teacher Kukai, or (posthumously) Kobo Daishi, established a doctrine uniting Buddhism and Shinto under the name of Ryobu Shinto (Japanese, “the Shinto of two kinds").

Detailed explanation-5: -Shinto ("the way of the gods") is the indigenous faith of the Japanese people and as old as Japan itself. It remains Japan’s major religion alongside Buddhism.