This tendency was given added impetus when, with the outbreak of the so-called Manchurian incident in 1931, it became customary to pray for victory at shrines. Shrine visits had now become established practice at primary school there was a growing sense that refusal to visit a shrine disqualified one as a citizen of the imperial nation. They played their part in spreading that ideal throughout Japan. The funeral of the Taishō emperor, the enthronement rites of the Shōwa emperor, and the ritual rebuilding of the Ise shrines were all state rites and ceremonies intimately related to the idea of venerating the deities. Shintō rituals and shrine visits were linked to patriotism and, after the nation’s military aggressions in Asia began, to victory in war: The emperor was divine, a descendant of Amaterasu, the sun goddess worshiped at Ise shrine. Under the slogan “keishin sūso” (reverence for kami, respect for ancestors), the government established Shintō belief as the basis of national unity. During the Meiji Period (1868–1912), however, the imperial government ordered a separation of the two religions, declaring Buddhism foreign and Shintō native. By the eighth century, kami were worshipped as manifestations of buddhas and bodhisattvas. Our family went to Honpa Honganji, as the sect’s temples are called, mainly for funeral and memorial services.Īfter Buddhism was introduced in the sixth century, it became the dominant religion and incorporated Shintō into its beliefs and practices. Shinran (1173–1263), the founder of the sect, preached faith in Amida Buddha alone as the way to salvation. My grandparents worshiped at Shintō shrines before emigrating to Hawai‘i, but they didn’t bring the worship with them, so although there were shrines in Hawai‘i, I never visited one while growing up.1 My family belonged to the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Buddhism, which established its first temple in Hawaiʻi in 1889. Hokori-no-Miya in Gōnomura (2011): we first visited the shrine in 1970.
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