Taoism vs Shinto: A Brief Comparative Essay

Introduction

Taoism (Daoism) and Shinto share many extrinsic commonalities and even a number of
intrinsic similarities. Among numerous other equivalents that will be discussed within the
body of this essay, both Shinto and Daoism are indigenous religions rooted in
shamanism that lent to, and borrowed from, Buddhism in their respective countries
(Japan and China).[1] They were both given their present names by people from
outside of the religions.[2] Further, the name given to both religious Daoism and Shinto
contains the same exact Chinese characters, 神道. These shared Chinese characters,
or Japanese Kanji, are significant to a comparative analysis of these religions for a
number of reasons that will also form part of this essay’s appraisal of the similarities and
differences between these native religious systems.

The biggest challenge posed by a comparative examination of these two religious

systems lies in the struggle to define the very things being compared. A large and at
first seemingly insurmountable amount of ambiguity exists in both the internal and
external definitions of both of these religions, and so this essay will begin by identifying
salient aspects and qualities that may be compared and contrasted. Notwithstanding
the fact that these two religions do in fact exist beyond vague discursive processes,
there is considerable confusion arising from the fact that they have been variously and
ambiguously defined throughout different historical periods, and have been largely
defined in relatively recent years by contrasting them against other prevailing religious
systems.[3] At times, Daoism was seen as anything that was not Confucianism, and
Shinto,[4] at least as we know it today, some have argued, is little more than a
medieval,[5] or according to Kuroda, a nineteenth-century imperial invention with no
actual antiquity behind it whatsoever.[6]

What is Daoism?

The term Daoism is, with its nominalizing suffix, a Western invention used to describe a
broad array of religious and philosophical phenomena in China.[7] For this reason,
isolating Daoist thought and practice for the purpose of examination is hampered by
relatively resolvable confusion.[8] One of the means by which scholars have sought to
resolve this confusion is to separate philosophical Daoism from religious Daoism, and it
is religious Daoism with which this essay is primarily concerned. Breen and Teeuwen
argue:

‘When discussing Taoism as a religion, one should restrict oneself to the fifth century
and later, when Taoism had been established as the national religion and the term
“Taoism” (daojiao) had assumed the same meaning that it has today, otherwise
terminological confusion will ensue’.[9]

The primary texts upon which rest both the Daoist religion and philosophy are the Dao
De Jing, also called the Laozi (Lao Tzu),[10] after the alleged author, and the Zhuangzi,
named after the fourth-century Chinese Daoist philosopher, Master Zhuangzi.[11] A
core principle that permeates both Daoist philosophy and religion is inaction (wu-wei –
無為).[12] This principle should not be interpreted as complacency, laziness, apathy, or
laissez-faire, but ‘letting go’, or ‘non-interference’.[13] The irony of Laozi’s wu-wei, when
it came to the vain expression of the ineffable and incomprehensible dao, was not lost
on the eighth-century Chinese poet Po Chu-i, who wrote:

‘Those who speak know nothing,

Those who know keep silence.”

These words, as I am told,

Were spoken by Lao Tzu.

But if we are to believe that Lao Tzu

Was himself one who knew,

How comes it that he wrote a book

Of five thousand words?’[14]

This exposed irony illustrates a fallibility that exists not only within Daoism but in all
religions, and it reminds us that each and every religion, being fallible human
contrivances, contain inherent and inescapable inconsistencies. Cooper notes that Wu-
wei makes it a taboo to worship “false” gods for security, for in Cooper’s opinion; ‘The
world’s sages have all taught the stupidity of the quest for security’.[15] If such was in
fact the case, then this is where Daoism would come directly into conflict with Shinto –
yet religious Daoism appears to be obsessed with security. One need only examine
Daoist exorcism,[16] Taoist protective talismans,[17] or the various Daoist rituals that
serve a variety of security-focussed and protective functions.[18] The concept of the
false god is also worthy of brief mention, for, notwithstanding the fact that the idea of the
false god is prevalent in most, if not all, religions, it is a feature that Daoism shares with
Shinto. This concept in Shinto can be found in the Nihongi, which recounts the alleged
account of an intelligent Koromonoko who refused to be sacrificed to an ancient
Japanese river god, whom, he declared, was a “false god”.[19]

What is Shinto?

Shinto (神道), like religious Daoism (shen dao – 神道), share the exact same Chinese
characters, and one of the earliest usages of this conjugation of Kanji in Japanese texts
can be found in the Nihongi/Nihon Shoki (8th century).[20] Kuroda argues that the 神道
reference in the Nihongi did not refer to Shinto, but Daoism – which, Kuroda argues,
was widespread throughout Japan at the time.[21] This is just one of the components of
Kuroda’s argument for the nineteenth-century creation of Shinto.[22] On the other
hand, Breen and Teeuwen argue:
‘…it is vital that we remember that many shrines, priestly lineages, kami beliefs, and
rites do display a remarkable degree of continuity over very long periods of time’.[23]

Although encompassing a variety of religious phenomena, differently defined over a

variety of periods (jidai – 時代), Shinto, at its heart, is a nature religion, and its rites,
rituals and beliefs, as we know them today, all centre around a deep admiration for
nature.[24] For Shinto, the gods (kami 神) are each and every aspect of nature, or
rather, each and every aspect of nature are the gods.[25] Further, due to Daoism’s
influence in early Japan, a number of Shinto gods appear to have been inherited from
both the principles of Daoist philosophy and the gods of religious Daoism’s pantheon.
Some scholars have noted that Izanami and Izanagi are the Shinto descendants of the
Daoist principles of Yin and Yang,[26] and other scholars have convincingly argued that
Juronjin, the Shinto god of wisdom and longevity, was also a Daoist deity.[27]

What is the Way (道)?

Whether Shinto, as we know it today, is rooted in antiquity or whether it is a relatively

recent invention, the more modern interpretation of the 道 in Shinto has come to carry
heavy imperial and nationalistic overtones – qualities almost entirely absent from the
more anarchistic Daoism.[28] Atsutane writes:

‘The Way of the gods (Shinto) is the great Way of our country. As the Way governed by
the emperor, it is clearly to be revered above Confucianism or Buddhism’.[29]

This Way, according to Yukitada, is the original essence of the gods (honji-suijaku –本
地垂迹), and Yukitada employed the Laotzi to argue that this undifferentiated essence
existed conceptually beyond Buddhist conceptions.[30] According to the Laotzi, the
essence (jing – 精) is contained within the Way (dao– 道), and as is the case with most,
if not all religions, faith is a key component.[31] Prior to Yukitada’s attempt to circumvent
Buddhism’s sovereignty over Shinto, the Japanese kami (神) were seen as
the suijaku (trace manifestations – 垂迹) of Indian Buddhism, which represented the
‘original ground’ (honji – 本地).[32] Here, it may be argued that the Way in both Daoism
and Shintoism loosely equates to the dharma in Buddhism. So, in both Shinto and
Daoism, the Way is the metaphysical principle that governs the world, and can only be
perceived by maintaining an intricate balance of nature.[33] The primary distinction
between Shinto and Daoism’s conception of this metaphysical principle is found in
Shinto’s anthropomorphic depiction of this metaphysical principle, which is, for the most
part, absent in Daoism.[34] Further, Hartz notes:

‘Shinto does not, however, include the concept of a vast overarching power, such as the
Dao of Daoism…’[35]

The Afterlife: Zhuangzi vs Shinto

 A further difference between Shinto and Daoism comes to light with an examination of
Zhuangzi’s materialistic and naturalistic reformation of Daoism in the fourth
century. According to the Zhuangzi, there is no life after death – the body simply
decomposes and the energy (qi -氣) returns to the universe in an almost pantheistic
fashion.[36] Shinto, conversely, holds a variety of beliefs regarding what happens to
people after they die – from an ascending apotheosis to a descent into the gloomy
underworld, Yomi (黄泉), which is somewhat similar to the Greek Hades.[37] Early
Daoism, however, shared more closely Shinto superstitious visions of the afterlife, with
one prevailing Daoist belief locating hell under the sacred Tai Mountain in China.[38]
Locating an ethereal hell in a national, terrestrial location is also a belief propagated by
Shinto mythology, which holds that the gates of Yomi (Yomi no Kuni -黄泉の国) are
located in Tottori-Ken.[39]

Talismans in Daoism and Shinto

Both Shinto and Daoism employ crude and superstitious ‘magic’ in the form of amulets
and talismans to ward off evil spirits and invite good luck and fortune. In
Japanese, majinai (curse – 呪い) is the word used to describe this aspect of the Shinto
expression phenomena. Some scholars argue that Shinto majinai was either directly
inherited from Chinese Daoism, or else indirectly through Buddhism, which, according
to some, adopted Daoism’s preoccupation with ‘magical’ amulets and talismans.[40]
Hosak, Luebek and Grimm argue:

‘Taoism probably came to Japan at the latest in the seventh century. The Japanese
historical work Nihonshoki begins with the characters yin and yang and tells of the
arrival of Taoist Masters. The height of Taoist practices such as divination and exorcism
occurred in Japan during the Heian period (794-1185)…This mainly involved the making
of amulets and magical practices. An office was even created at the Tenno’s court for
this purpose’.

The Ground-Purification Ceremony (Jichinsai –地鎮祭)

The ground-purification ceremony is widely practiced in Japan. In fact, it is so widely

practiced that a relatively recent court ruling held that it no longer constituted a religious
practice, but a secular one.[41] Bocking remarks:

‘Once levelled, the site is marked out as a temporary

shrine (himorogi) with shimenawa, sakaki branches etc. and then purified in a ritual
which appeases the kami of the land and local spirits, calls on their protection for the
future occupants and cleanses the site of any undesirable influences. Also called ji-
matsuri and toko-shizume-no-matsuri, it is probably derived from Taoism’.[42]

Whether or not this Shinto ceremony shares ritualistic commonalities with potentially
parallel Daoist purification rituals is unclear, however, the Daoist notion of the ‘sacred
space’ lies at its heart. Everywhere, it is believed, is a potential dwelling place for the
holy, which is a common aspect of the Daoist and Shinto expression phenomena that
they share with Buddhism.[43]

Conclusion

Shinto and Daoism appear at first glance to be impossible to define, much less
compare. Neither of these religions defined themselves in the same way that other
religions like Christianity, for example, did – and hence the first challenge in attempting
to compare and contrast these religions is to define them. If we restrict our examination
of Daoism to the fifth century and thereafter, it is possible to cautiously delineate
religious Daoism and separate it from various other anti-Confucian religious and
philosophical phenomena. Once such parameters have been clearly established, it is
possible to define and describe some of the intrinsic qualities of religious Daoism,
which, in turn, makes it possible to contrast it against other religions. The core principle
of Daoism, which it shares with Shinto, is an emphasis on a metaphysical Way. Unlike
Shinto, however, Daoism sees this Way as being overarching and incapable of
description. Shinto, on the other hand, anthropomorphizes this principle in the form of
an undifferentiated godhead, who eventually gives birth to the Daoist principles of yin
and yang, again anthropomorphized in the characters of Izanagi and Izanami.

Shinto, unlike the more anarchistic Daoism, eventually became a state religion, and in
so becoming it took on an imperial component absent in Daoism. The infusion of this
component led Kuroda to argue that Shinto, prior to the nineteenth century, was nothing
but a non-existent fiction. Other scholars argued that it truly became a definable religion
from the medieval period, and so, like Daoism, needs to be examined by restricting the
investigative parameters to, and from, a specific historical period. There is little doubt
that Daoism had a significant influence upon Shinto over the centuries, and this
influence can be witnessed not only in Shinto anthropomorphized Daoist principles, but
also in its purification ceremony, its employment of talismans and amulets, and, most
significantly, in the very Kanji used to define it (神道).