About This Book
In “The Origin of Modern Shinto in Japan,” Yijiang Zhong analyses the formation of Shinto as a complex and diverse religious tradition in early modern and Meiji Japan, 1600-1868. Highlighting the role of the god Okuninushi and the mythology centered on the Izumo Shrine in western Japan as part of this process, he shows how and why this god came to be ignored in State Shinto in the modern period.
In “The Origin of Modern Shinto in Japan,” Yijiang Zhong analyses the formation of Shinto as a complex and diverse religious tradition in early modern and Meiji Japan, 1600-1868. Highlighting the role of the god Okuninushi and the mythology centered on the Izumo Shrine in western Japan as part of this process, he shows how and why this god came to be ignored in State Shinto in the modern period.
The Origin of Modern Shinto in Japan draws extensively on primary source materials in Japan, many of which were only made available to the public less than a decade ago and have not yet been studied. Source materials analysed include shrine records and object materials, contemporary written texts, official materials from the national and provincial levels, and a broad range of visual sources based on contemporary prints, drawings, photographs and material culture.
Contents
| List of Figures | |
| Acknowledgements | |
| Note on Text/Translation | |
| Introduction | |
| 1. | Resurrecting the Great Lord of the Land, 1653-1667 |
| 2. | The Month without the Gods, 1600-1871 |
| 3. | True Pillar of the Soul, 1792-1846 |
| 4. | Converting Japan, 1825-1875 |
| 5. | Competing Ways of the Gods, 1872-1889 |
| Conclusion The Izumo Gods, Nation, and Empire | |
| Notes | |
| Bibliography | |
| Index |
Info
Yijiang Zhong
The Origin of Modern Shinto in Japan ： The Vanquished Gods of Izumo
Bloomsbury Publishing, xii + 260 pages, 2016 .10, ISBN: 978-1-4742-7108-0