INNER PURITY EMPHASIZED, AND SINCERITY OR UPRIGHTNESS AS THE FUNDAMENTAL ETHICAL PRINCIPLE BECOMES PRE-EMINENT IN SHINTŌ

In the course of development Shintō Deities by degrees came to prefer spiritual offerings to material-just the idea of the offering of the Buddhist Dharma, because Heavenly and Earthly Deities subsist on the Hokkekyō or and find the source of spiritual strength in uprightness, as proclaimed Nichiren, the founder of the Buddhist Nichiren Sect (Nichiren’s Epistle to Hōjō-Tokimune. Ibun or Posthumous Works, p. 608).