How does one come to learn about the religious culture of a foreign country? With such an immense amount of stuff to learn, and almost no prior knowledge, it's sometimes best to focus on only one topic. In my case, I've tried to focus on Japanese folk religion, although I've wandered a bit with the topic. Why folk religion? Because in many ways, it contrasts greatly with our familiar western religion - folk religion is not highly based one's beliefs, but on rituals; its goal is not eternal salvation but minor aid in the here and now. Also, folk religion is by its very nature unorganized and region specific, whereas western religions have a very clear hierarchy and organization. In some of these aspects, folk religion isn't radically different from other 'folk ways', and it helps to address those issues that the great traditions don't bother with - people's day to day needs and issues.

My research was based around a number of questions, which I hoped all hinged around the central theme of folk religion. Of course each question could support a very long and involved answer, and at best I only touched the surface of these topics. First, I wanted to know what folk religion is actually like. Folk religion seems to made up primarily of things that people do. What are the major rituals, the ones that are widespread? How did they develop, and spread around? To answer this question I began by looking at a chapter on folk religion in H. Byron Earhart's Japanese Religion: Unity and Diversity. For a more in depth examination I then looked at the first chapter of Ichiro Hori's Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change.

My second question involved mythology. I wanted to know what the prominent local myths of Japan are, and how they vary from place to place. I now realize this task would be incredibly difficult, as I don't know anything about Japanese mythology. So instead of looking at local myths, I looked at the Kojiki, one of the earliest written sources of Japanese mythology.

I had noticed that mountains seemed to have a special place in Japanese thought. So for my third question, I asked what is the importance of mountains in Japanese religion generally?

For this question I went back to Hori's, Folk Religion in Japan, which had entire chapter devoted to the significance of mountains.

Fourth, and finally, I wondered about how the religious rituals (folk and otherwise) had survived in modern Japan, and its changing society. What aspects of the religions have been maintained, and what aspects have been modified to adapt to the contemporary context? For this question, I turned to Ian Reader's, Religion in Contemporary Japan. This was a good source, although it didn't focus on folk religion specifically.
 

Question 1: What is Folk religion?

Source 1: H. Byron Earhart's Japanese Religion: Unity and Diversity "Chapter 7: Folk Religion: Religiosity Outside Organized Religion." (p.60 - 67.)

I began my enquiry with an article by H. Byron Earhart, one of the standard scholars of Japanese religion. His article sets up folk religion as a contrast to formal or institutionalized religion, calling them the 'little tradition' and the 'great tradition'. He suggests Folk religion works at a level that is perhaps below or more mundane than what the greater traditions will deal with. (They have different ends?). For example folk religion performs rituals to ensure good crops and a big harvest (rice festivals, for example), or making your family get along, etc. There are a lot rituals or ways of doing things (ways one prays or asks for favors and good luck) that relate to the different aspects of daily life, and also things that correspond to certain periods in a an individual's life (lucky and unlucky years, for example). Also, Earhart mentions the role of Shamans in folk religion. These are usually blind women, who can supposedly undergo trances and speak with the dead.

Source 2: Ichiro Hori's Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change - Chapter 1, "Main Features of Folk Religion in Japan" (p.1 - 47)

This was an interesting reading, even though it was somewhat confusing. This chapter talked about some of the characteristics of folk religion, but dealt mostly with its origins. I was frequently lost. I think he intended this work for an audience with at least a basic knowledge of Japan, its history, and its culture. Most of the references are Japanese texts, not English, although the book was edited by Joseph Kitigawa, and was looked over by both H. Byron Earhart, and Robert S. Ellwood. I'd hesitate to call it an introductory text, but then again the themes and issues that Hori is stressing may come out in the body of the text, while the introduction just skimmed quickly from topic to topic.

In one section he dealt with the formation of Japanese religion and cultural diffusion - how different religious elements have their origins in several distinct cultural traditions outside of Japan. For example, he describes two separate styles of shamanism, one that involves ecstasy or hysteria, and one that does not. Not only are they localized in different areas of Japan, he suggests that they have different origins outside of Japan. He stresses that much of the folk religion of Japan comes out of agrarian origins (rice-farming) and suggests that there are fundamental similarities in the folk religions of all agrarian cultures. Interestingly, he suggests that there are few local heroes in (rural) Japan, and later he mentions that most of the worship in rural villages is directed at Kami who don't reside near the village. He claims there is sense of groundedness and immobility; these people are tied to the land. The people cannot go out to find the gods, the gods must come to the people. Similarly, it seems that heroic figures come from the political center of Japan, as everything is static in the rural areas. He concluded the chapter by talking about superstitious beliefs in folk religion (such as possession by fox spirits). He is very critical of superstition, suggesting that it is dangerous or harmful to society, and suggests that all religious leaders have a responsibility to bring people over from "popular superstitions into right faith".

This chapter touched upon a lot of my questions, but since it was an introductory chapter, it didn't deal with them explicitly. I had wondered what were the prominent local myths in Japan, and this chapter described the origin of some of these myths. I wondered what the major traditions were, and how they spread around. This chapter talked about the static/immobile nature of rural communities, and how they frequently looked for religious support outside the community. (One interesting thing Hori suggests was that the rural people regarded Buddhist divinities as merely more non-local god's and since they already looked to outside Kami for support, they found adopted Buddhism as merely a variant of their own beliefs, and not a separate or foreign religion. I had questions about shamanism, and spiritual/magical persons generally. He didn't talk a lot about them, but suggested that they would get covered later in the book.

One question that he didn't deal with at all dealt with how the folk rituals and traditions have been preserved or modified in modern day Japan, and in urban settings. He did, however, make the remark that if the old superstitions disappeared, the Japanese would make superstitions out science too.
 

Question 2: What are some important Japanese myths?

Source 3: Donald L. Philippi's translation of the Kojiki (Chapters 1 - 20)

Curious about Japanese mythology, I turned to the Kojiki, one of the first written sources of Japanese mythology and history. It's an interesting read, if a little difficult. Although I only read the 1^st 20 chapters (of 149), I think I got a good sense of the book - I'd say that the Kojiki is both a narrative of sorts, and a long list of names.

It begins by detailing the creation of a large number of deities, but the narrative focuses on two characters, the gods Izanagi and Izanami. These are prototypical male and female characters, and together they give birth to a number of islands (Japan?), and other gods. Izanami gives birth to a fire god, and becomes sick and dies. Angered, Izanagi kills the fire god, and journeys to the 'underworld' (Yömï) to meet his wife. But entering into the underworld, he is greeted by his wife's rotting corpse. His wife is angered by him, (he was forbidden to look at her in Yömï) and sends various hags and thunder gods after him. After he successfully escapes and renounces their marriage, Izanagi washes himself in a river, to purify himself from the corruption of the underworld.

Interestingly the themes of purification and pollution are fairly important in this section of the Kojiki. Blood, birth, decay are all seen as forms of spiritual pollution, while water is seen as a means of purification. I believe these themes of purification and pollution are supposed to be especially important in folk religion, and I've seen this in contemporary Japanese literature as well.

The Kojiki also reminds me of other creation myths and legends, and the excessive emphasis on names reinforces this notion. I couldn't help comparing parts of it to the epic of Gilgamesh, as they shared a common theme of coping with/refusing to cope with death and decay.
 

Question 3: What is the significance of mountains in Japanese religion?

Source 4: Ichiro Hori's Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change - Chapter 4, "Mountains and their Importance for the Idea of the Other World" (p.141 -179)

I'm glad I noticed this chapter, as the topic was something I was quite curious about. The image of the mountain is often prominent in Japanese artwork (specifically, I'm thinking of the prints of Hokusai), and it doesn't seem surprising that they have a sacred aspect to them - they are wonderful and impressive natural phenomena.

Hori begins by suggesting that sacred mountains are universal phenomena, something present even in Judeo-Christian mythology (Mts. Sinai and Zion for example). He also suggests that in addition to being sites of pilgrimage, purification, and meditation, mountains are also the locations of popular rites and ceremonies. He suggests that mountains can be classified into 3 main categories - volcanoes, mountains that are the source of rivers, and mountains connected to the afterlife/spirits of the dead. Volcanic eruption was often interpreted as an act of divine creation, while mountains with rivers were important sources of water for agriculture, and frequently the god of these mountains would also come down and become the god of the rice field. Mountains were sometimes connected to the afterlife as burial grounds and the resting places of the souls of the deceased, but other times by being pathways to (and borders of) the heavens/other world. Also, water from the mountains was seen as especially pure and sacred, and used for purification. Finally, Hori suggests that mountains represent a 'Divine or Sacred Mother', and that mountain goddesses are often female. He suggests this tradition dates to hunting tribes in ancient Japan.

This whole chapter addressed one of my major questions ('what is the significance of mountains in Japanese religion?'), but it didn't answer all my smaller questions. I wanted to know what exactly Shugendo was. This chapter suggested it is a mountainous sect of (Mantrayana) Buddhism, but it was rather unclear. Are Shugenja different from yamabushi? I understood that mountain water was pure or sacred, but I don't know why it is, or what the significance of that is. Also, I was surprised about the 'sacred mother' image, because I had gotten the impression that Shugendo was a rather male-centered religion (I had heard that Carmen Blacker, who did research on Japanese shamanism, had difficulty getting access to or was not allowed into Shugendo sites).
 

Question 4: In what ways has religion survived in modern Japan.

Source 5: Ian Reader's Religion in Contemporary Japan - Chapter 1, "Turning to the Gods in Times of Trouble: The Place, Time, and Structure of Japanese Religion" (p.1 - 22)

I had previously suggested that Japanese religion emphasized ritual over belief. This reading strongly reinforced that conviction. I had been curious to discover to what extent the rituals and traditions of Japanese religion have been preserved or transformed in modern Japan. The country has undergone massive change and urbanization in the last century (and more), and I wonder if the traditional rituals have been preserved in this changing society.

If religious rituals have been preserved to a large degree, this reading suggests that religious belief, per se, has not been preserved, or perhaps never existed in the western sense of the word. Reader describes two stories which emphasize this point, but also may cause a bit of confusion. In one story he describes a conversation between a colleague and a Japanese businessman - when the colleague mentioned he was going to Japan to study Japanese religion the businessman assured him there was no longer Japanese religion. In a second story he related a visit he and some Japanese friends took a number of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. His friends claimed they weren't religious nor were they interested in religion, but at each temple they made offerings and engaged in prayer.

Citing a number of statistics, Reader points out that the majority of Japanese have no religious beliefs, yet about 70% of the population belong to Buddhist groups, while over 90% are classified as Shinto (this involves a high degree of overlap), plus a smaller percentage who belong to the 'new religions'. And while many of these people have almost no connection with their religious sects (for example, many people don't know what sect of Buddhism they belong to, and don't find out until a family funeral occurs), almost half the population has both a Shinto and Buddhist altar in their homes. So in at least some important sense religious ritual has not been abandoned in modern Japan.

Religion has been preserved primarily as activity. Japanese religion seems to have always placed emphasis on actions and rituals, on things people do, rather than on what they believe. I'm unsure whether religiosity in modern Japan merely continues that tradition or takes it to new levels (not in the sense that modern Japan relies more on ritual than it used to, but perhaps that belief in the entities of those regions are less prevalent than they used to be). He does suggest that people are more likely to increase and emphasize religious belief in times of need (ex, during illness or before school examinations), and then decrease that belief after circumstances have improved.

In addition to the obvious rituals surrounding birth (Shinto) and death (Buddhist), he also sites hatsumde and o-bon as major religious rituals (although many Japanese would not call them such). Hatsumde is a new years visit to shrines and temples that attracts an increasingly large percent of the population, while o-bon is a summer festival, where family comes together (often to rural hometowns, I believe) to pay respects to their ancestors. Perhaps like Christmas and Easter in the Christian tradition, these holidays currently have as much a social as a religious character, but it seems they have clearly have their roots in religion.

I wonder though, if Japan still maintains the rituals but not the beliefs of its religions, is it doomed to loose these too, given enough time? Do the religious dimensions of rituals and festivals become diminished with each generation while the social dimensions increase? Obviously I'm not in a privileged position to make such a judgement, but I have to wonder.
 

Conclusion

Given the facts that this inquiry covered a wide scattering of topics and was more of a personal learning project than a structured argument, I'm not sure what kind of useful conclusions I can draw. Japan has a religious environment very different from that of America, but perhaps folk religion in Japan is not nearly no so different from certain folk elements in Catholicism. At one point, there were a great variety of local saints (both official and not) in rural parts of Europe. People prayed to these saints, and asked favors from them for the day to day needs of their lives. But in the next village, they might worship a different saint. Japanese Folk religion is similar in these respects, it has local gods, local stories, local superstitions. And sure many aspects of the folk religion will generally the same, but every area has its own local twist.

Or at least it used too. With a highly modernized and highly urbanized country, I am sure folk traditions have died out in droves. But even though the majority of Japanese claim to not have any religious belief, religious rituals persist and do fade away. Perhaps things take on different meanings, becoming more social than religious obligations, but religious rituals do not necessarily have to die out. Global mono-culture is not all invasive, and Japan maintains a unique religious and spiritual environment.
 
 

Earhart, H. Byron. "Folk Religion: Religiosity Outside Organized Religion." in Japanese Religion: Unity and Diversity, 3rd ed. Wadsworth. Belmont, California,1982 (p.60 - 67.)

Hori, Ichiro. "Chapter 1, Main Features of Folk Religion in Japan" in Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change. Edited by Joseph Kitagawa and Alan L. Miller. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1968. (p.1 - 47)

Hori, Ichiro. "Chapter 4: Mountains and their Importance for the Idea of the Other World" in Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change. Edited by Joseph Kitagawa and Alan L. Miller. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1968. (p.141 -179)

Philippi, Donald L. (translator and editor) Kojiki. University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo, 1968.

Reader, Ian. "Turning to the Gods in Times of Trouble: The Place, Time, and Structure of Japanese Religion"in Religion in Contemporary Japan. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1991. (p.1 - 22)