![]() Summary: It remains a classic and an essential introduction for anyone interested in Shinto.įor another review, with some revealing points about the contents, see here. Just about all the most commonly asked questions are addressed, and the author gives an admirably detailed overview of the religion as a whole. The author is concerned to present a balanced view, and while the writing may be bland at times, it is easily read and full of essential information in comprehensible language. ![]() Shinto belief includes several ideas of kami: while these are closely related, they are not completely. ![]() All the important aspects of the religion are covered, from beliefs and practice to history and political characteristics. Shinto tradition says that there are eight million million kami in Japan. Even though the book came out nearly fifty years ago, most of the content has not dated. Anna Andreeva challenges the twentieth-century narrative of Shinto as an unbroken, monolithic tradition. It has good references if you want to explore more deeply into Shinto. Though occasionally cautious and unclear, it covers itself by claiming that Shinto prefers ambiguity to clarity. This book has a lot of history as far as the Shinto deities. It presents the traditional, conservative view of Shinto as Japan’s indigenous enduring religion which has in recent times recovered the independence it had before the advent of Buddhism. As such, it comes close to presenting an orthodox, official version of the religion though in reality there is no such thing. It has the virtue of seeming authoritative, for it was written by a professor of Kokugakuin University who was also a lecturer for Jinja Honcho. For years it seemed to be the only book on the subject, and it has been in print for an extraordinary length of time. ![]() This book has for long been the classic work on Shinto in English. ‘Shinto: The Kami Way’ by Sokyo Ono US/Japan: Tuttle, 1962 116 pages, small size. ![]()
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