Historical and historiographical issues in the study of pre-modern Japanese religions
The purpose of this essay is to address four broad issues in regard to the study of the history of religions in pre-modern (prior to 1868) Japan, es­ pecially in the early (712-1185) and medieval(1185-1600) periods, in order to redress certain imbalances in the study of pre-modern Japanese religions with regard to those issues.1 Those four issues are: First, the relation between Buddhism and Shinto. Second, the relation between the development of religious institu­ tions, rituals and doctrines, and developments in the society-atlarge of the time. Third, the comparative importance of religious institutions, rituals, and doctrines, as well as the main purposes of ritual. And fourth, the relation between religion and politics. Each of these issues contains within it two sets of questions: one, an his­ torical set,has to do with the whole matter of the nature and structure of pre-modern Japanese societies, and the second, an historiographical set, involves an inquiry into the matter of why modern studies of pre-modern Japan have the shape that they do. In this essay we will consider sequen­