This is part 4 of my series on Shinto as a civil religion, you can find the rest of the series here.
Restoration Shinto’s influence on the new Meiji government was immediately evident when Shinto was successfully separated from Buddhism. A few months after the overthrowing of the shogunate, Okuni Takamasa, Fukuba Bisei, and Kamei Koremi, three of the most influential bureaucrats on religion, sent out an edict named “shinbutsu bunri rei” or “separation of the Buddhas and Kami”. The goal was to separate the two religions completely from each other. This now meant that temples and shrines were to be separate places. It also meant that Buddhist priests could no longer lead a shrine, without converting to Shinto. This separation would turn violent in many areas. Especially where Kokugaku had a lot of influence or where there were many samurai who had been laid off. (All samurai had been dismissed during the restoration). This meant that many temples were looted for their treasures and in extreme cases, burnt to the ground. A lot of the destruction came from a place of bitterness over the yearlong mistreatment of Shinto. Many Shinto priests had found the circumstances unfair and demeaning. The destruction continued despite the government’s condemnation of the destruction.
Gods, Kami, and the people
The separation didn’t only include the shrines and temples, but also the Buddhist gods and the kami. An example of this would be the kami Hachiman. He had been classified as a Bodhisattva, but now became the kami Hachiman Daijin. Other kami were removed from shrines if they couldn’t be found or supported in the two Shinto texts the “Kojiki” and “Nihon Shoki”. The people had mixed reactions to this. Some saw their local protector kami elevated to actual kami present in the texts as an honor. Others found the whole ordeal silly and unnecessary.
Despite the destruction and looting of Buddhist temples, many Japanese people stayed Buddhist. The people still worshipped at Buddhist temples and received Buddhist burials. And despite the two religions’ separation on paper, the people continued to worship as they always had, by doing Buddhist rituals for Shinto kami. Part of the reason for this was that Shinto still didn’t have its own doctrines which could replace the Buddhist rituals.
With the separation Shinto also became a state-run religion and Buddhism lost its state support.
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Sources
Hardacre, Helen. Shinto: a History. Pp. 537-541.
Breen, John. “Ideologues, Bureaucrats, and Priests: On ‘Shinto’ and ‘Buddhism’ in Early Meiji Japan.” In Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami, edited by John Breen and Mark Teeuwen, 230–51. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. Pp. 233
Hardacre, Helen. Shinto and the State, 1868-1988.
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