The debate is not over whether or not Shinto has any foreign - Chinese or Buddhist - influence within it, but just how much of its underlying character is truly Japanese and not just a creation of modern Japan. Is Shinto Japan's primary cultural persona or is it just aspects of a more inclusive worldview "that does not privilege the indigenous over the imported" (Dobbins 452)?
The traditional view of the formation of Shinto starts with the introduction of Buddhism into Japan. For many centuries the religious traditions and practices within the Japanese islands were loosely organized around family lines with no central organization. Not until Buddhism and "advanced" Chinese culture entered Japan in about the middle sixth century c.e. was there any need to distinguish the old traditional practices from any new cults (Earhart 30). Then, because Buddhism called itself the "way of the Buddha" (Butsudo) the traditional religion set itself apart by the counterpart term Shinto meaning "way of the kami".
The earliest recorded uses of the term Shinto in Japan come from the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. Both are chronicles compiled on Imperial court order and were completed in 712 c.e. and 720 c.e., respectively, and are among the first written records in Japan (Earhart 30). These records show early Chinese influence because they contain both Chinese myths and the fact that Japan had no written language until prior to the influx of the Chinese script.
The scholar Kuroda Toshio points to the three uses of the word "Shinto" in the Nihon shoki to show how the word has been misinterpreted by modern scholars. The following three sentences are the only instances of the word in the Nihon shoki: "
What Kuroda contends it the "real" Shinto are a series of beliefs and practices submerged in a broader religious worldview he calls kenmitsu Buddhism. He states that the components of kami culture came just as much from outside Japan as from within and they were ultimately grounded in the kenmitsu worldview through "the identification of the kami as protective deities or as partners to or extensions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas" (Dobbins 451). This is Japan's primary cultural persona, not a false construct created during the Meiji period for political reasons.
The traditional view of Shinto, in general, is that it borrowed various religious expressions from three traditions = ethical concepts from Confucianism; cosmology, religious calendar, divinities, festivals and charms from religious Taoism; philosophy, rituals, objects of worship and formulas from Buddhism (Earhart 107). Basically, Shinto never ceased to be the perpetuator of the older Japanese traditions. It only borrowed foreign concepts that complemented and helped expand and explain the Shinto traditions. The borrowing added to Shinto's richness and, over time, the borrowings became so much a part of the religion that their foreign origin was forgotten.
Stuart Picken asserts that even though Shinto borrowed elements from other, foreign, religions the place that these elements occupied within their respective cultures was not necessarily the same as what they occupied in Japan. The fact that Shinto may have only come into its own as a separate religion during the Meiji period does not negate the fact that it is now a religion. He says that "discussions about the origins of Shinto should be separated clearly from what Shinto came to be within the evolution of Japanese civilization and its distinctive significance for Japanese self-understanding." (Picken 11).
Kuroda says that "what is perceived as indigenous, or as existing continuously from earliest times, is nothing more than a ghost image produced by a word linking together unrelated phenomenon." (Dobbins 467). Essentially, his argument is that because, over time, a word's meaning changes what it defines today is not what it defined in the past. To link what was with what is can create something that never really was there in the first place.
The debate over Shinto and its origins seems to be basically one about language and about interpretation. There is general agreement that Shinto incorporated other religions into its body, but at what point it became a religion unto itself is debated and that seems to focus on the word "Shinto" itself. It is a debate that can never really be proven or disproven because we can never know what the early Japanese writers meant when they first used the word.
Earhart, H. Byron. Japanese Religion: Unity and Diversity. Third edition. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1982.
Picken, Stuart D.B. Essentials of Shinto: An Analytical Guide to Principal Teachings. London: Greenwood Press, 1994.