Those early peoples conceived of and revered numerous gods of nature.

5. (a) What is the Shinto view of the dead? (b) How does the Shinto view of the dead compare with that of the Bible?

⁵ In addition to this reverence, fear of departed souls led to rites for appeasing them. This later developed into a worship of ancestral spirits. According to Shinto belief, a “departed” soul still has its personality and is stained with death pollution immediately after death. When the bereaved perform memorial rites, the soul is purified to the point of removing all malice, and it takes on a peaceful and benevolent character. In time the ancestral spirit rises to the position of an ancestral, or guardian, deity. Thus we find that the immortal soul belief is fundamental to yet another religion and conditions the attitudes and actions of the believers.​—Psalm 146:4; Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10.

6, 7. (a) How did Shintoists view their gods? (b) What is a shintai, and why is it significant in Shinto? (Compare Exodus 20:4, 5; Leviticus 26:1; 1 Corinthians 8:5, 6.)

⁶ Gods of nature and ancestral gods were considered to be spirits “floating” in and filling the air. During festivals, people called upon the gods to descend to the specific sites sanctified for the occasion. Gods were said to take temporary residence in shintai, objects of worship such as trees, stones, mirrors, and swords. Shamans, or spirit mediums, presided over rituals to call down the gods.

⁷ Gradually, the “landing sites” of the gods, which were temporarily purified for festivals, took on a more permanent form. People built shrines for benevolent gods, those who appeared to bless them. At first they did not carve images of the gods but worshiped the shintai, in which spirits of gods were said to reside. Even an entire mountain, such as Fuji, could serve as a shintai. In time there came to be so many gods that the Japanese developed the expression yaoyorozu-no-kami, which literally means “eight million gods” (“kami” means “gods” or “deities”). Now the expression is used to signify “countless gods,” since the number of deities in the Shinto religion is ever increasing.

8. (a) According to Shinto myth, how was Amaterasu Omikami formed and forced to give light? (b) How did Amaterasu Omikami become the national deity, and how were the emperors tied in with her?

⁸ As Shinto rituals concentrated around shrines, each clan enshrined its own guardian deity. However, when the imperial family unified the nation in the seventh century C.E., they elevated their sun-goddess, Amaterasu Omikami, to be the national deity and central figure of the Shinto gods. (See box, page 191.) In time the myth was propounded that the emperor was a direct descendant of the sun-goddess. To fortify that belief, two major Shinto writings, Kojiki and Nihon shoki, were compiled in the eighth century C.E. Using myths that exalted the imperial family as the descendants of gods, these books helped to establish the supremacy of the emperors.

[Box on page 191]

The Sun-Goddess in Shinto Myth

Shinto myth says that far back in time, the god Izanagi “washed his left eye, and so gave birth to the great goddess Amaterasu, goddess of the Sun.” Later on, Susanoo, the god of the sea plains, so frightened Amaterasu that she “hid in a rocky cave of Heaven, blocking the entrance with a boulder. The world was plunged into darkness.” So the gods devised a plan to get Amaterasu out of the cave. They collected crowing cocks who herald the dawn and made a large mirror. On the sakaki trees, they hung jewels and cloth streamers. Then the goddess Ama no Uzume began to dance and drum on a tub with her feet. In her frenzied dance, she stripped off her clothes, and the gods burst out laughing. All this activity aroused the curiosity of Amaterasu, who looked out and saw herself in the mirror. The reflection drew her out of the cave, whereupon the god of Force grabbed her by the hand and brought her out into the open. “Once more the world was lit up by the rays of the Sun goddess.”​—New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology.​—Compare Genesis 1:3-5, 14-19; Psalm 74:16, 17; 104:19-23.