Sensoji Temple, also known as Asakusa Kannon Temple, is a Buddhist temple located in Asakusa in Tokyo. Many Japanese have both Shinto god shelves (kamidana) and Buddhist altars (butsudan) in their house and observe Shinto rites for marriage and Buddhist rites for funerals.Īt the following places you can visit some great examples of Shinbutsu-shugo. The mix of these two religions is also rooted in people’s everyday lives in Japan even today. Still today we can see evidence of the peaceful cohesion of the two religions in Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines all around the country. As a result, shrine-temples are now rare while temple-shrines are common, and many temples still have at least a small temple-shrine. During the Meiji period, in order to help the spread of Shintoism and to minimize the spread of Buddhism, most of the shrine-temples were destroyed while temple-shrines were tolerated. In 1868 during the Meiji Period, the Japanese government ordered the separation of the two religions, and Shintoism was proclaimed as the national religion. It was common to build temples at shrines called “shrine-temples” and shrines at temples called “temple-shrines”. By absorbing Buddhism gradually and mixing it with local folk religions, a fusion of Buddhism and Shintoism was born: Shinbutsu-Shugo or Shinbutsu Konko, which can be freely translated as mixing kami (Shinto gods) and Buddha.Īs a result, Buddhist temples were attached to local Shinto shrines and vice versa, and in some instances both places were devoted to both kami (Gods) and Buddhas.

However, Japan would never fully abandon its native religion, but rather they tried to reconcile Buddhism with Japanese indigenous religion. It resulted in spreading around the country with countless numbers of temples built everywhere. The situation changed drastically after the emperor Suiko, who had a strong belief in Buddhism, officially enthroned in 592. After that, Buddhism started to have a huge influence on the development of the whole society with the strong support of emperor and other authorities. When Buddhism was introduced to Japan in 552, some many Japanese people saw it as a threat to the status quo, where others, especially the internationalists in the Japanese court welcomed Buddhism. The exact origin remains unclear, but the beliefs have a long history based upon the ancient lifestyle in which the relation of humans with nature was centralized. Shintoism is the Japanese indigenous religion based on an ancient system of animistic beliefs and customs.

Seiganto-ji Temple & Kumamoto Nachi Taisha, Wakayama

Kannon buddha japanese kami