Beliefs now associated with the religious tradition called Shinto originated long before anyone ever referred to them as “the Way of the Kami.” Archaeological evidence points to various forms of nature worship, ancestor veneration, shamanistic rituals, and animistic beliefs in an agricultural society during the neolithic (7000-250 B.C.E.) and bronze-iron (250 B.C.E.-100 C.E.) ages. Primitive shrines dedicated to the community or clan deities called ujigami appeared between 100 and 552 C.E. Sometime in the later sixth century C.E., after the arrival of Butsu-do or “the Way of the Buddha,” Japanese distinguished indigenous beliefs from the imported tradition by inventing a name for it. During the Nara period (710-794), the Nakatomi clan served as priests of a nascent imperial Shinto whose earliest major shrines were those of Ise and Izumo. By 737 Shinto shrines numbered over three thousand, one in four enjoying direct government support.

The Fujiwara clan founded the important Kasuga shrine in Nara, the first capital. Kasuga was destined to play a critical role in the development of a hybrid of Buddhism and Shinto through its relationship with the nearby Buddhist temple of Todaiji. Throughout the Heian period (794-1185), with the capital newly established at Kyoto, Shinto’s fortunes were intimately bound up with developments in Buddhism. Theologians on both sides devised theories designed to fit the two belief systems together, thereby inventing “Dual Shinto,” a blend of both.

The Kamakura period (1185-1333) witnessed the rise of feudal lords (daimyo) and a samurai warrior caste under a shogun (“throne field marshal”) of the Minamoto family, which had toppled the Fujiwara clan. The Samurai code, bushido, was a blend of Confucian aristocratic conservatism, Buddhist mental discipline, and Shinto patriotism. Under the Minamoto the two chief kami were Sugawara Michizane, patron of literary and social concerns, and Hachiman, kami of war. Shinto grew as a popular religious tradition during the Muromachi/Ashikaga period (1333-1568, the first name referring to the capital outside Kyoto and the second to the clan in power) with imperial patronage of pilgrimage to Ise shrine.

Pre- and early modern developments during the Momoyama/Azuchi (1568-1615) and Edo/Tokugawa periods (1615-1867) included Shinto’s steady ascendancy over Buddhism and identification with the political power of dictatorial shoguns. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese isolationism went hand in hand with attempts to rid Shinto of foreign elements. That culminated in the Meiji Reform, ushering in the modern period (1868-1945) and restoring the emperor to divine status. World War II called Shinto’s imperial theology into question and saw a return of popular sectarian movements.