This is part 6 of my series on Shinto as a civil religion, you can find the other parts here.
The genre of Kokugaku which starts with Hirata Atsutane and his later followers Sato Nobuhiro and Okuni Takamasa would speak of “The Divine Age”. “The Divine Age” was a time when the Japanese lived after the teachings of the kami and because of this was set on a course to rule the world. However, the teachings of Buddhism and Confucianism would lead the rulers astray and ruin the Japanese destiny. This would result in the people forgetting the true “way” from “The Divine Age”. They forgot that the whole world was created by the Japanese kami, that the Japanese people came from these kami, and that their true destiny was to rule the world. To get back to their destiny, Japan had to return to “The Divine Ages” teachings. Only the Kokugaku scholars knew these teachings. And they said Japan had to push out the false Chinese learning. If Japan were to do this, it could reclaim its destiny.
Tipping history on its head
This story clearly inverts history. Many of the Chinese teachings are attributed to the kami and through them, to Japan itself. Yet the reality was that these things had, of course, come from China and had a positive impact on the country’s evolution. This history was something other than what the kokugaku scholars were interested in. It went against their ideology of Japanese superiority.
The sanctification of the Japanese nation and its people in these kokugaku texts is the first few steps towards a civil religion. Because the kokugaku scholars are part of the populace, not the ruling elites, these first steps are towards a bottom-up civil religion. This will change, the closer we get to WWII, and especially after its fusion with another more political ideology. Kokutai.
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Sources
Based on my own analysis of Kokugaku texts from Theodore De Bary, William(ed.). Sources of Japanese Tradition: Volume Two 1600-2000. Colombia University Press: New York, 2005. Print.
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