ABSTRACT
THE TASK OF TELLING THE HISTORY of religious studies in Japan tointernational readers requires that I first explain the country’s general religious background.1 Whereas Japan has a variety of religious traditions, a large number of Japanese people identify themselves as ‘non-religious’. Opinion polls show that no more than 30 percent of respondents have particular religious faiths, which is low compared with other nations. Whether it is appropriate to say in an academic context that Japanese are a-religious is itself a highly debated question. Many of them do not deny the existence of gods and are at times engaged in religious practices, such as visiting temples.2 Some scholars, such as Toshimaro Ami (1996), therefore argue that Japanese are religious in their own way, and that they appear a-religious only when the Western concept of ‘religion’ is applied to them.
