Abstract
This paper reflects on the way that Edo-era Shinto shrines and the Buddhist priests tending these shrines were depicted in the discourse of one native historiographer, written after the Shinto-Buddhist separation. The conventional view of the Shinto shrines located in the old Kanazawa area, which were used in our case study, suggests that few Shinto priests actually served their shrines, and that Buddhist priests and shugen (mountain ascetics) tended many shrines until the end of the Tokugawa regime, when, following the Meiji restoration, they became formal Shinto priests. This paper follows the discourse of the native historiographer Morita Heiji (1823-1908), who lived and wrote from the late Tokugawa period until the Meiji period. The following two points were obtained from the case study. Firstly, Morita's discourse reveals that the anti-Buddhist sentiment among society at the time was not central to the Shinto-Buddhist separation. Secondly, while it was difficult to distinguish pure Shinto shrines from Buddhist temples in the Edo era, the more than 20 facilities used in this case study are commonly considered to have been Shinto shrines, because Morita regarded the Buddhist priests and shugen who had tended these facilities as Buddhist servants of Shinto shrines.
