Kami: the varied beings and presences of Shinto

Amaterasu, Inari and Tenjin—the deified Sugawara no Michizane—can all be called kami, although their narratives and functions differ. Mountains, rivers and trees can also be associated with kami. The expression yaoyorozu, often rendered as “eight million,” conveys a multitude rather than a completed census.

Ritual relationships may concern agriculture, local protection, illness, skills or personal petitions. Kami can bring benefit, but some traditions also stress danger and pacification. “Nature spirit” leaves out deified people and institutional worship, while a definition limited to one creator deity also fails to cover the range. Nigimitama names a spirit’s peaceful, calming aspect, and aramitama its rough or raging aspect. Some shrines enshrine these aspects separately, so ritual arrangements vary.

After Michizane died, deaths and disasters—including a palace lightning strike in 930—were attributed to his angry spirit. Worship sought to pacify that spirit; in 947 he was enshrined at Kitano as a protector of the imperial capital’s palace. These were religious interpretations of misfortune. The revenge plot in the later puppet play belongs to dramatic storytelling.

A shintai is an object associated with the sacred presence; examples include mirrors, swords and natural features. At Ōmiwa Shrine in Nara, Mount Miwa is the shintai. The shrine has no honden building for housing it: worship faces the mountain from the worship hall. This is one specific arrangement among differing shrine traditions.

Tama can mean a human spirit or a spiritual force in nature; mitama is an honorific form. A yorishiro is the object, place or person understood to receive a kami’s spirit during ritual. Trees, rocks and prepared implements can serve this role. Kokugakuin’s encyclopedia gives the sand cones of Kamigamo’s Miare rite as one example: the term describes a ritual relationship.

Offerings, prayers, purification and periodic festivals sustain relations with kami. Communities transmit local and agricultural rites, while individuals visit shrines with petitions. The same deity name can be associated with different local narratives, festivals and organisations.

Kitano Tenmangū’s Fudehajime rite on 2 January offers writing implements associated by tradition with Michizane and prays for improvement in calligraphy. It is followed by Tenmagaki, writing the year’s first calligraphy before the deity. A remembered human skill connects the offerings, the petition and the participants’ own activity; the relationship extends beyond examination success.

The eighth-century Kojiki and Nihon shoki recorded genealogies and narratives of numerous kami. Amatsukami generally means kami who dwell in or originate from the heavenly realm of Takamanohara; kunitsukami generally refers to kami native to the land of Japan. The terms vary in meaning across periods and sources, and do not exhaust the range of later local cults. Texts, court ritual and local traditions have related but distinct histories.

In the Kojiki, Susanoo’s destructive acts culminate in a weaver’s death. Amaterasu withdraws into a cave and the world darkens. Uzume’s performance and the gods’ laughter draw her attention; a mirror brings her towards the entrance. Tajikarao pulls her out, Futodama stretches a rope behind her, and light returns. Several kami act to change the situation in this mythic narrative.

After Buddhism arrived, shrine and Buddhist institutions increasingly overlapped. Temple facilities appeared in shrine compounds, and Buddhist clerics served in shrine rites. Medieval honji suijaku explained kami as manifestations of buddhas or bodhisattvas. Miwayama engi, with a colophon dated 1551, connects Miwa Myōjin with Daikokuten and Hiyoshi Sannō, preserving one particular synthesis.

Kokugaku scholars revisited classical texts during the Edo period. Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) explained kami through examples of usage, emphasising extraordinary powers that inspire awe. Earlier writers had connected the word to a homophone meaning “above”; later linguistic study distinguished their origins. An old interpretation is not itself an established etymology.

From 1868, Meiji measures separated shrine institutions from Buddhism, prohibiting certain Buddhist titles and practices, including Buddhist images used as shintai. Anti-Buddhist destruction in some areas altered buildings and objects associated with earlier combinations.

The modern state administered shrines as a national ritual system, separately from religious organisations. In 1882 the roles of state evangelists and shrine priests were separated; in 1900 the Shrine Bureau separated shrine administration from that of other religious institutions. The Occupation’s Shinto Directive of 15 December 1945 ended state sponsorship and control of Shrine Shinto. Shrines reorganised as religious corporations, and the Association of Shinto Shrines was founded in 1946.