The Influence Of Shintoism In The Japanese Society

842 Words4 Pages

The Japanese society is known for the strong importance they place on mannerisms, the way they interact with people and their etiquettes for almost every action they perform and every thing they do. They place strong importance on doing everything perfectly in consideration of others without embarrassing both themselves and others. They have strict etiquettes in place for almost every activity ranging from sitting techniques to visiting shrines and temples. Japanese places strong importance in their religion too and hence religion plays a major role in influencing these etiquettes and values placed in Japanese. This brings me to the main issue I would like to address in my essay which is to examine the impact of Shintoism in the Japanese society. Shintoism is the native religion in Japan. Shintoism means ‘the ways of the gods’ and the main beliefs thus includes being faithful to one’s ancestors and looking upon scholars, heroes and emperors as gods. According to this religion, one’s ancestors are believed to be still lingering round their loved ones to ‘protect’ their descendants from harm. The spirits can linger around almost everywhere, for example where their dead body rests or in infrastructures built in their honour etc. As a result, there is notion that there is still an existing relationship between the alive and the dead. So how exactly does the religion of Shintoism affect the values and etiquettes of the Japanese society? Firstly, because one of the main

Open Document