ABSTRACT
The study of Shinto with regard to its relationship with the Chinese religion of Taoism (or Daoism, as it is now sometimes termed, in deference to the official romanisation of Chinese used in China and in this study) is, as most scholars would agree, whatever their personal opinions on that relationship, an underresearched area, and so it would as yet be foolish in the extreme to try to venture any generalisations on the topic in all its complexity. The following remarks focus therefore on the early period of this relationship as posited by Kuroda Toshio, since this has the greatest direct bearing on our understanding of the nature of Shinto itself. But it is worth pointing out that the most perceptive and balanced survey of the whole topic, compiled by the late Anna Seidel shortly before her untimely death, does emphasise that Taoist influence on indigenous Japanese religion, especially as transmitted through the medium of Buddhism, stretched from early times through to the Kamakura period and beyond. 1 As a consequence, the reader must bear in mind that the tentative suggestions made in this chapter refer primarily to the Nara period and the century or so leading up to it, and may have little validity before or after. Even so, the state of research on Chinese and Japanese religion during that time does now allow us to start to clarify a number of formerly obscure points, and gives us the hope that continued joint research in this area may offer new understandings of Japan’s religious development.
