What happened when Buddhism arrived in Japan, and met the Japanese kami (deities in Japan)? How did the two relate to each other, and what changes occurred in religious thought and practice? These problems have been addressed by many scholars, not only from a purely historical perspective, but also as a starting point for reflection on the adaptation of foreign cultural elements in Japan. However, the premise of a bipolar divine realm, containing only kami and Buddhist divinities, and the exclusive focus on the different kinds of rapprochement and conflict between the two, has placed severe methodological restrictions on the study of the subject. As a result, many questions have remained unasked. First of all, while the conventional method has been useful in exploring the diachronical development of amalgamation, it has clear limitations when we take a synchronical perspective. Even more fundamentally, one has to raise the question to what extent the assumed dichotomy of kami versus Buddhist divinities was in any way important, or even recognized in pre-modem Japan. We must not lose sight of the fact that there was a large divine realm that was not so easily categorized. It is hardly possible to understand the world-view and mentality of the medieval Japanese as long as we fail to take this basic fact into account. With a methodology that posits a simple distinction between kami and buddhas, one can never hope to make sense of the medieval divine realm. To supplement the findings arrived at with more traditional methods, in this paper I have attempted to open up another perspective.

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The policy of separating Shinto and Buddhism (shinbutsu bunri) that was forced at the beginning of Meiji period has drastically changed the Japanese religious environment. The former state could be described as shinbutsu shugo (Shinto-Buddhist syncretism), but this description contains considerable difficulty. The reason may lie in a difference of recognition concerning both terms. The former (Separation) is based upon modern and "scientific" recognition (monothetic classification), but the latter (Syncretization) may be based on a different recognition. The anthropologist Rodney Needham proposed the term "polythetic classification." Could we understand shinbutsu shugo (Syncretization) as polythetic classes? We examine the historical categories of ji-sha (templeshrine complex) and ken-mitsu (exoteric and esoteric complex) which the historian Kuroda Toshio proposed, as polythetic classes. Finally we point out that both categories consist of polythetic classes, and are still influencial among various religious folk practices.

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L'existence actuelle de cultes bien vivants dans lesquels fusionnent croyances et pratiques shinto-bouddhiques pose de nombreuses questions a l'ethnologue. Cet article prend quelques-unes d'entre elles pour point de depart : Quelle est la necessite de telles configurations dans l'univers religieux contemporain? Quelles dynamiques de continuite ont donc traverse la rupture faite par l'autoritaire <<separation>> qui, a Meiji, visait a dissocier non seulement les elements religieux decretes <<autochtones>> et <<etrangers>>, mais aussi les faits de croyance et les rites? Les donnees de terrain, notamment celles qui concernent le shugendo et les specialistes des oracles, permettent de mettre en lumiere les strategies d'evitement, d'occultation et de negociation qui ont sous-tendu certains axes de continuite. Par ailleurs, les cultes composites, dans lesquels les entites shinto-bouddhiques s'entremelent et sont globalement concues comme des kami, se laissent apprehender comme des dispositifs de memoire, essentiels pour l'insertion des individus et des groupes dans la societe. Cette approche menee dans le cadre particulier de la societe japonaise voudrait contribuer a la reflexion plus generale sur une question d'une actualite brulante en ce XXIe siecle commencant : celle des tensions entre, d'un cote, les mouvements et les politiques religieuses autoritaires, et, de l'autre, les reactions et les moyens deployes par les populations locales et les individus pour entretenir la conscience de leur identite.

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The movement to "separate buddhas and kami" (shinbutsu bunri), which is the counter side to the "amalgamation of buddhas and kami" (shinbutsu shugo), is a reflection of the whole of Japanese history and the construction of a State with centralized power from the early modern to the modern era in Japan. The Meiji Restoration and its surrounding ethos, which provided the basis for the persecution and transformation of Buddhism, led to a transformation in the structure of power and the systemization of various fields of knowledge. The way of thinking of the economic systems, the development of National Learning, and the compilation of a history of a single country, came together to form the ideal of the Meiji state, which attempted to "demythologize" Buddhism while at the same time bringing to completion a new mythology created by the government. When we gaze at the future while analyzing this structure as a whole, it becomes necessary to construct a new Buddhist Studies with a hermeneutics that is based on the world of daily life.

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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the path traversed by Buddhism, and what form it has taken root in Japan's mythological world. Most of the past studies about the phenomenon of shinbutsu shugo (combination of kami cults and Buddhism) have laid emphasis on the doctrine or the system, and few have researched the matters concerned with the minds of its believers. This paper will study what this combination of kami and buddha has meant at the deepest level of the human spirit, namely, the relation of consciousness and existence. The ideal persons introduced in Japanese myths are people who are associated with kami. Their common characteristics are intense emotions (corresponding to the ability to write waka poems) and a strong hold on life (=a fear of death). Motoori Norinaga described these characteristics with the concept of "magokoro." Buddhism appeared to Japanese as contributing ideas that could reinterpret the internal aspects of mythological persons with its new wisdom, make the understanding deeper, and complement other aspects. These perceptions toward Buddhism seem to have helped to establish it in Japan as a religion indispensable to the sprits of kami-worship.

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Shintoism has been mixed with Buddhism, and on the other hand quarantined from Buddhism. This coexistance of mixture and isolation is the most striking characteristic phenomenon of Japanese syncretism. This situation was established along with the process to form jingi worship by the ancient Japanese government. When Buddhism was first brought into Japan, it was accepted as representing foreign gods, which were worshiped the same way as the Japanese gods in the Tumulus period ; that is, entrusting the worship of certain gods to a particular lineage, and by building poles. Jingi worship was formed after Tomb-rituals had been discontinued, and at that time the government had already accepted Buddhism. Therefore Shintoism originally was in a position superior to that of Buddhism, and not mixed with it completely.

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The conception of the separation of Shinto and Buddhism is recognized as early as in Nihon shoki. The scandal of Usa Hachimangu Takusen by Dokyo (which occurred in the era of Shotoku Tenno, when the idea of the harmony of Shinto with Buddhism had reached its peak), caused a crisis of royal authority, which in turn prompted the separation of the two. As the result the separation was institutionalized in the Chotei Saishi, and especially in the Tenno Saishi, which are rituals included in the Jogan-shiki of the 9th century. After the middle of the Heian Period, this separation spread widely to regions other than just religious ceremonies, although the harmony of Shinto and Buddhism had also developed vigorously. The belief that the genealogy verifies that the Tenno blood descends from Amaterasu Omikami forms the religious ground for the "raison d'etre" of Tenno and the nobles, and this concept is embodied in the rites of the Tenno Saishi. Thus, if the matters and affairs connected with Buddhism were allowed to be part of the Saishi, it means that the view of monarch sovereignty in terms of Buddhism is accepted officially. This is exactly where the crucial factor of the separation of Shinto and Buddhism lies. It is considered that the institutionalization of the separation in the 9th century was influenced strongly by the awareness that Buddhism had deeply infiltrated into the Court, and by the idea that Japan is the "land of the gods, " which had been enhanced by the sense of crisis related to foreign threats. The separation of Shinto and Buddhism was not confined only to Tenno Saishi, however. It had penetrated deeply into the society of the nobles, and furthermore, it had taken its root as a norm in the society of the common class people. This became the basis on which the Shinto of today is formalized.

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This article traces changes in the theory of syncretic faith (shinbutsu shugo) in medieval Japan. The idea of gods have evolved with the penetration of the theory of "original substances and manifest traces" (honji suijaku) through the Middle Ages, but the biggest change was that it came to be thought that gods were in our hearts. It was thought that honji suijaku meant that Buddha appeared as inner gods, for example our essential evilness was considered to appear symbolically as the body of a snake. This indicates that Medieval Shinto was a positive faith offering relief from sin. However, the idea of inner evil gradually recedes in the latter period of the Middle Ages, and this leads to the foundation of early modern Shinto.

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The apologetics of Buddhism brought about against anti-Buddhism is usually given only a negative evaluation, but as a "self-portrait" of Buddhism it can be given positive significance as a sort of Buddhist apologetics. A common feature of Buddhism in Japan in early modern and modern times was relations with the Emperor. Relations with the Emperor and Buddhism are explained by the history of Buddhism faith held by the successive Emperors themselves, and it is explained by a country and ties with Buddhism that the Emperor governs. Buddhism in modern times served the Emperor, and the Meiji government used this for the unification of the nation. Buddhism, Shinto, and Christianity did not mutually fuse in the modern period, and each was tied to the Emperor individually. Thus was built the religious system of modern times in Japan.

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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.

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In this paper I address the issue of Buddhist combinatory traditions (shinbutsu shugo) and modernity by focusing on Indian ideas on kingship and their impact on premodern Japanese emperorship ; by tracing their development and their ultimate demise, I attempt to suggest some political and cultural reasons for the rejection of Buddhist syncretism by the modern Japanese nation-state. In particular, the Buddhist discourse on kingship in Japan is usually treated as a single entity. However, I argue that it was in fact a plural formation in which Indian ideas on kingship developed in at least three distinct, if partially overlapping, areas. These three discursive regimes of Buddhist kingship are, respectively, a Buddhist discourse on ideal types of rulers (the "Great Elect" or Mahasammata, the Dharma-king or dharmaraja, and the Universal emperor or cakravartin) that was applied in various ways to the Japanese rulers ; a second Buddhist discourse on kingship, running parallel to the first one, which was intended mostly for internal use by religious institutions and had few direct connections with the imperium ; and a third, originally Brahmanical discourse on the "godking" (devaraja) which developed within so-called Ryobu Shinto and Ise Shinto. The first Buddhist discourse contains almost no combinatory (shinbutsu shugo) elements, which can be found instead in the second and third discursive regimes. While the first discourse has been studied in depth, the second and the third ones have been largely neglected despite their significant contributions to Japanese ideas on the ontological foundations and the symbolism of kingship. The third discourse (on devaraja) in particular, after it had been purged of Indian references, came to constitute one of the intellectual sources of the modern sacralization of the emperor.

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