ABSTRACT
In this chapter and the next we temporarily leave the world of Japanese institutions which may readily be compared with their counterparts elsewhere, and plunge into a very different cosmological system. At this stage the reader with some anthropological background will have a definite advantage, for religion in Japan may much more easily be compared with any number of indigenous religions around the world than with the great traditions which are discussed in ‘religious studies’ or ‘comparative religion’. What should be included under the term ‘religion’ in Japan remains open to discussion. It has been described as ‘a ritual system which pervades all institutions’ (Fitzgerald 1993), and it has been argued that to the Japanese themselves even their language is endowed with sacred qualities (Miller 1977).
