Yoshida Shinto

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Yoshida-Shintō ( Japanese吉田 神道) or Urabe-Shintō (卜 部 神道) is a school of Shintō that was developed by Yoshida Kanetomo (吉田 兼 倶; 1435–1511) in the second half of the 15th century and then continued by his family was operated. Yoshida Kanetomo called the Yoshida-Shintō yuiitsu shintō (“(the) one and only Shintō”), sōgen shintō (“original Shintō”) and genpon sōgen shintō (“fundamental and original Shintō”).

It is the first systematization of Shinto traditions by the Yoshida family, a branch of the Urabe family, who were specialists in turtle shell fortune telling at the imperial court and, through inheritance of the priestly offices, the Yoshida shrine and the Hirano Shrine in Kyoto .

This school, the first example of a coherent Shinto system after the introduction of Buddhism in Japan , which also used the term Shinto for the first time to denote its own religious ideas, is considered to be one of the most influential in the historical development of Shinto.

history

The teachings of Yoshida-Shintō were first written down by Kanetomo in 1470 in the Sōgen Shintō seishi . The work was probably created at the time of the Ōnin war , which led to the destruction of the Yoshida family estate (1467) and the Yoshida shrine (1477) in Heian-kyō . Kanetomo had also been Vice- Artistic Director of the Central Shinto Office ( jingikan ) since 1467 , the first milestone in his career as one of the most important key figures in the development and propagation of Shinto in connection with state affairs, at the height of which he had the sole right to To raise people to the rank of kami . In 1476 he described himself as the "head of Shinto" ( Shinto chōjō ).

The completion of the theory of Yoshida-Shintō can be found in Kanetomo's work Yuiitsu shintō myōbō yōshū , which was probably written around 1484. In this document Kanetomo represents the contemporary Shinto is a system of relationships original essences holy (Buddhist) entities and their manifest tracks as kami ( honjaku engi ) and religious practices based on the two fundamental Mandalas of esoteric Shingon - Buddhism (see. Ryobu Shinto ). In contrast, the Yoshida-Shintō is the original and fundamental form of Shintō, with Kunitokotachi no mikoto as the supreme deity, whose teachings on the original constitution of the cosmos before the split into Yin and Yang ( onmyō fusoku no gengen ) and the emergence of the first Refer to thought ( ichinen mishō no honpon ). In addition, the relationship between the kami and the Buddhas is exactly the opposite: the latter are the foreign traces of the native gods of Japan.

The Yoshida Shinto experienced its heyday after the death of Yoshida Kanetomo with the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate under Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu until the Edo period , when the Ise Shinto experienced a renaissance and the new school of Yoshikawa Shinto began to develop . However, the authority of the Yoshida Shinto of the Yoshida family and the Yoshida shrine to classify kami and shrines without traditional ties to the imperial family, to regulate Shinto rituals and issue licenses to exercise the Shinto priesthood continued until the Meiji Restoration when new teachings became dominant (especially the Kokugaku movement and the Fukko Shinto (Restoration Shinto)) and the right of the Yoshidas to assign shrine ranks to the new central government.

Religious Teachings

The teachings of Yoshida Shinto are exoteric (generally accessible and understandable) and esoteric (secret) in nature. The exoteric sources consist of the classical Japanese writings, such as the Kojiki and the Nihonshoki , in which the genesis of the heavenly and earthly realms, the divine age and the lineages of the Japanese rulers are presented. In addition, the exoteric teaching also includes the worship of the kami of heaven and earth ( tenjin chigi ) and human spirits ( jinki ) as well as rituals of physical cleansing ( harae and misogi ).

The esoteric sources, which were only passed on within the Yoshida family, are of a more complex nature and aim at spiritual purification by showing threefold divisions throughout the cosmos, which essentially correspond to the penetration of the three beings heaven, earth and man through Shinto.

Although Kanetomo vehemently asserted the originality of his new Shinto teachings, both his religious and philosophical theories as well as religious practices are clearly influenced by esoteric Buddhism (especially Shingon-shū and Tendai-shū ), Chinese-inspired Japanese cosmology ( Onmyōdō ) and Daoist Ideas which, in practice, did justice to the strongly syncretistic beliefs of medieval Japan. In the Edo period, the Yoshida Shinto was scolded by critics as Buddhist for these reasons.

literature

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