In Japanese, "Shinto" means "the way of the gods". The origins of Shinto go back to the Ancient Age, when it was still a cult of natural phenomena (storms, mountains, sun, moon or rivers), which believers identified with deities called kami. In the sixth century AD, Japan's national religion began to receive influence, through China, from Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. This last religion, besides conditioning many aspects of the later Shinto cult, constituted a new and own slope of the islands, Zen Buddhism; In the last few decades, it has aroused Western interest in the simplicity of its rites and the attraction of its arts and techniques of meditation. Popular Shintoism, with foreign influence and, at the same time, with Japanese nationalism, became The religion of the State and, despite this condition, …show more content…
Shinto has neither a creator nor a collection of religious texts nor a fixed or consensual body of doctrine.La word " Shinto "means" the way of the gods or spirits ". "This acceptance goes back to an animistic conception of the world, associated with the tribal cult of the clan deities. Shintoism, or Shintoism, is a primitive and popular religion of Japan, named in the eighth century to distinguish it from Buddhism, which Later incorporated many features". It arose from the cult of nature of popular religions, and this is reflected in ceremonies invoking the mysterious powers (spirits or deities) of nature (kami) to receive benevolent treatment and protection. Nature is inhabited by an infinite cohort of such deities or spirits, and human life is intimately linked to their thoughts and actions. Therefore, the Shinto religion is a combination of nature worship and ancestral worship, and in most cases, myth-nature is inseparable from nature relative to the ancestral deity and its