Shinto Shrines - Arrival and Impact of Buddhism - Shinbutsu Bunri

The Shinto shrine went through a cataclysmic change when the Meiji adminitration promulgated a new policy of separation of kami and foreign Buddhas (shinbutsu bunri) with the Kami and Buddhas Separation Order (神仏判然令, Shinbutsu Hanzenrei?). This event is of great historical importance partly because it triggered the haibutsu kishaku, a violent anti-Buddhist movement which in the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate and during the Meiji Restoration caused the forcible closure of thousands of Buddhist temples, the confiscation of their land, the forced return to lay life of monks, and the destruction of books, statues and other Buddhist property.

Until the end of Edo period, local kami beliefs and Buddhism were intimately connected in what was called shinbutsu shūgō (神仏習合), up to the point that even the same buildings were used as both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples.

After the law, the two would be forcibly separated, causing great damage to the nation's heritage. This was done in several stages. A first order issued by the Jingijimuka on April 1868 ordered the defrocking of shasō and bettō (shrine monks performing Buddhist rites at Shinto shrines).

A few days later, the 'Daijōkan' banned the application of Buddhist terminology such as gongen to Japanese kami and the veneration of Buddhist statues in shrines.

The third stage consisted of the prohibition against applying the Buddhist term Daibosatsu (Great Bodhisattva) to the syncretic kami Hachiman at the Iwashimizu Hachiman-gū and Usa Hachiman-gū shrines.

In the fourth and final stage, all the defrocked bettō and shasō were told to become "shrine priests" (kannushi) and return to their shrines. Also, monks of the Nichiren sect were told not to refer to some deities as kami.

After a short period in which it enjoyed popular favor, the process of separation of Buddhas and kami however stalled and is still only partially completed: to this day, almost all Buddhist temples in Japan have a small shrine (chinjusha) dedicated to its Shinto tutelary kami, and vice-versa Buddhist figures (e.g. goddess Kannon) are revered in Shinto shrines.