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Shinto
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Shinto is a form of nature-worship dating back to an unrecorded antiquity. Originally nameless, the Japanese later called this faith "Shinto," or Way of the Gods, in order to distinguish it from imported Chinese thought systems such as Buddhism. In Shintoism, the Japanese worshiped the myriad nature spirits believed to inhabit natural phenomena such as rocks, waterfalls, trees and mountains. Later, under the influence of Buddhism and Confucianism, they ... came to revere the spirits of their ancestors. Called kami, these Shinto deities were not originally represented anthropomorphically. Instead, the area where they were believed to be present was demarcated.
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Shinto is the oldest Japanese religion, dating back to the first millennium BCE. Until the sixth century CE, it existed as a mix of nature worship, fertility cults, divination techniques, hero worship, and shamanism. Unlike Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam, it had no founder and it did not develop sacred scriptures, an explicit religious philosophy, or a specific moral code. Indeed, the early Japanese had no single term by which they could refer to their religious philosophy. The word Shinto, or "the Way of the kami (spirits)," came into use only after the Japanese sought to distinguish their own tradition from the foreign religions of Buddhism and Confucianism.
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Shinto has no binding set of dogma, no holiest place for worshippers, no person or kami deemed holiest, and no defined set of prayers. Instead, Shinto is a collection of rituals and methods meant to mediate the relations of living humans and kami. These practices have originated organically in Japan over many centuries and have been influenced by Japan's contact with the religions of other nations, especially China. Notice, for example, that the word Shinto is itself of Chinese origin and that much of the codification of Shinto mythology was done with the explicit aim of answering Chinese cultural influence. Conversely, Shinto had and continues to have an impact on the practice of other religions within Japan. In particular, one could even make a case for discussing it under the heading of Japanese Buddhism, since these two religions have exercised a profound influence on each other throughout Japanese history.
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Shinto has no supreme God and heaven, and, unlike Chinese beliefs, it is not a divinity but the place where the kamis live. The kamis are thought to be intrinsically good but there are many exceptions. Prayers are made to the kami on various occasions for rain, good crops, the coronation of the Emperor etc. In fact, Shinto has no established doctrine but is made up of a combination of practices which originally varied considerably from one village to another.
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In the fifth and sixth centuries, Shinto came under the influence of Chinese Confucianism and Buddhism. From the former, it borrowed the veneration of ancestors, and from the latter it adopted philosophical ideas and religious rites. Because of the popularity of things Chinese and the ethical and philosophical attraction of Buddhism for the court and the imperial family, Shinto became somewhat less influential than Buddhism for more than a millennium. Many people... were adherents to both systems of belief. By the seventeenth century, Shinto began to emerge from Buddhism's shadow through the influence of neo-Confucian rationalism.
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Shinto established itself, along with Buddhism. The introduction of Buddhism in the 6th century was followed by a few initial conflicts... the two religions were soon able to co-exist harmoniously and even complement each other. Within Shinto, the Buddha was viewed as another "Kami". Meanwhile, Buddhism in Japan regarded the Kami as being manifestations of various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Most weddings are performed by Shinto priests; funerals are performed by Buddhist priests.
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Shinto