Shintō

Shintō has no founder or central authority. The kami are believed to dwell in mountains, rivers, trees and ancestors, and the rites are performed at shrines by priests called kannushi. Its oldest written traditions are the Kojiki of 712 and the Nihon Shoki, and the Ise Shrine, home of the sun goddess Amaterasu, is its holiest site.

Buddhism reached Japan in the sixth century, and from the eighth the kami were drawn into Buddhist cosmology. Shrines and temples were joined, and under the theory of honji suijaku the kami were taken to be local manifestations of buddhas, Amaterasu being identified with Dainichi Nyorai.

In the Sengoku period Yoshida Kanetomo (1435–1511) built Yoshida Shintō, which tried to give the kami an authority independent of Buddhism. It dominated shrine affairs until the late Edo period.