Unifying Traditions, Cosmological Perspectives and the Vitalistic Universe

Abstract

Situation and circumstance are intrinsic elements in the Japanese religious world, amply demonstrating its populist, pragmatic and ethnic orientations relevant to the Japanese people, their life styles, needs and environment in this world. All these elements have their roots in the enduring Japanese folk religious tradition that was based originally in a primarily agricultural society in which such actions as cyclical observances and rituals, petitions to deities for good harvests, concern for the spirits of the dead and their potential for malevolent actions against the living, and beliefs in the powers of the spiritual world to help or hinder humans in their pursuit of happiness in this life were paramount, but which continues to exert its influences in contemporary, industrialised Japan. Over the centuries the folk tradition has provided what Miyake Hitoshi has termed the ‘frame of reference’ through which organised religious traditions have found their roots and grown in Japan,¹ providing a centralising dynamic through which all the religious traditions found in Japan have been interpreted and assimilated in such a way that each has added to the overall picture, contributing to a whole that is more than simply the sum of its parts.