ABSTRACT
The idea that Shinto shrines are 'non-religious' was a principle integral to religious administration under the Meiji constitution of 1889. It is frequently maintained that this principle was adopted by the Meiji government in order to dissolve the obvious contradiction between the Meiji constitution's provision for religious freedom on the one hand, and the reality, on the other, that the state was in fact according to shrines the privileged status of a state religion and enforcing public worship at them. Miyazawa typifies this approach when he writes:
Shrines were in receipt of a quite different treatment from the state - that of a state religion no less - when compared to other creeds. If [the government] were to regard shrines as religious, in the way that, say, Buddhism and Christianity were so regarded, then it would be in breach of the Meiji constitution's provision for religious freedom. So, shrines were not dealt with as 'religious'. They existed uniquely for the purposes of rituals for ancestors, not at all what was meant by religion under the Meiji constitution. As a consequence, it became possible to regard the according of special treatment to shrines, the acknowledgement of their public status, and enforcement of nation-wide worship at shrines as [lying] beyond the bounds of the constitution's guarantee of religious freedom. Herein consisted the essence of the [Meiji] principle that shrines are non-religious. [Meiji bureaucrats] believed it possible to argue there was not the slightest contradiction between providing for religious freedom in the constitution on the one hand, and granting state protection to shrines and forcing people to worship at them on the other. 1
This analysis, it transpires, can not, however, be applied to the earlier period in which the Meiji constitution was being formulated. There is no evidence to suggest that those responsible for drafting the Meiji constitution believed that enforcing worship at shrines was anything other than a breach of the constitution's provision for religious freedom. This is clear enough from the
All this appears to demonstrate that the Meiji government had no intention of enforcing worship at shrines, but the question remains whether or not it used the 'shrines as non-religious' argument to accord to shrines privileged treatment and grant them public status. The answer to this - the Ise shrines and Yasukuni shrine are notable exceptions - is an unequivocal no. Irrefutable evidence is to be found in the detail of the Kankokuheisha hozonkin seido (Regulations for Funding State Shrines) issued by the Home Ministry in March, 1887. These regulations guaranteed funding for 'state shrines' of the kanpei and kokuhei sub-categories, but for a period of fifteen years and no more, after which time these shrines would be cast off and forced to depend for their livelihood on 'the respect and faith of worshippers'. 3 These Shrine Fund regulations not only marked the end to state funding of shrines; they also meant shrines were not being excluded from the religious freedom provision of the constitution. Interior Minister Sanjo Sanetomi (1837-91), who opposed the Shrine Fund system, said it was 'only natural' that 'the survival of shrines should depend upon the faith of the people'.4 By this time, the late 1880s, regional shrines of various different categories, which made up the vast majority of the nation's shrines, were already being treated by the government as 'private', and were no longer in receipt of any special protection. 5
We have to conclude from the foregoing that although the Meiji government adopted the principle that shrines were 'non-religious' in the run-up to the constitution's promulgation, it did not seek to except them from the provision for religious freedom; indeed, it sought to end shrines' proximity to the state. If, then, the government's purpose was neither to enforce veneration at shrines, nor to guarantee their special public status, why was it that the government took on board the principle that shrines were non-religious?
