First published in 2002. What is Shinto? is the key question asked by all who seek to understand Japan and the Japanese, answered in this volume by Sir Ernest Satow, the great British scholar and diplomat. Shinto is the unique and little-known religious beliefs that flourished in Japan before the introduction of Buddhism and Confucianism, but there are many versions - which is the pure form? Satow begins with a detailed study of core Shinto rituals as revealed in ancient texts, which embody the deepest and oldest traditions of Shinto belief in divinity, national destiny and, above all, Japan's special favored status as 'the country of the gods', beliefs that endure today behind the facade of Japan Inc. Shinto rites, incantations, sacred objects and symbols are described meticulously, with illustrations and translations by Karl Florenz. Satow then describes how the Ancient Way of Shinto survived centuries of foreign influence to be revived during the Meiji era, when it became the driving force behind the transformation of Japan into a world power. Unrivalled for its scholarship and elegance, this is a classic in Japanese studies.

This volume presents the only English translation of the prayers of Japan's indigenous religious tradition, Shinto. These prayers, norito, are works of religious literature that are basic to our understanding of Japanese religious history. Locating Donald Philippi as one of a small number of scholars who have developed a perceptive approach to the problem of "hermeneutical distance" in dealing with ancient or foreign texts, Joseph M. Kitagawa recalls Mircea Eliade's observation that "most of the time [our] encounters and comparisons with non-Western cultures have not made all the `strangeness' of these cultures evident. . . . We may say that the Western world has not yet, or not generally, met with authentic representatives of the `real' non-Western traditions." Composed in the stately ritual language of the ancient Japanese and presented as a "performing text," these prayers are, Kitagawa tells us, "one of the authentic foreign representatives in Eliade's sense." In the preface Kitagawa elucidates their significance, discusses Philippi's methods of encountering the "strangeness" of Japan, and comments astutely on aspects of the encounter of East and West.