WORLD RELIGIONS

Detailed explanation-1: -Shinto places a major conceptual focus on ensuring purity, largely by cleaning practices such as ritual washing and bathing, especially before worship. Little emphasis is placed on specific moral codes or particular afterlife beliefs, although the dead are deemed capable of becoming kami.

Detailed explanation-2: -The overall aims of Shinto ethics are to promote harmony and purity in all spheres of life. Purity is not just spiritual purity but moral purity: having a pure and sincere heart.

Detailed explanation-3: -Divination, water purification, and lustration (ceremonial purification), which are all mentioned in the Japanese classics, became popular, and people started to build shrines for their kami. Ancient Shintō was polytheistic. People found kami in nature, which ruled seas or mountains, as well as in outstanding men.

Detailed explanation-4: -The importance of ritual in Shinto Taking part in a series of actions or behaviours is a religious act that ‘does’ religion, provides a holistic religious experience, and strengthens the participants’ relationships with the kami and with other members of the community.