Kami is often used to indicate that there is an august presence or godliness surrounding a thing. It is useful to bear in mind that the Japanese word for god, kami, is used in a very broad sense as well as in the sense of god as in the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions. The nationalism which emerged took the emperor and his ancient divinity to heart and formed a crucial basis for the Meiji state, including its Constitution of 1889. Doing so contributed to a revival of attention and concern for the imperial family, particularly in the form of the School of National Learning. Some of them turned to the Kojiki and other old histories as sources. In the late Edo period, historians were influenced by developments in Confucianism to study ancient history and literature. The histories’ description of affairs prior to the middle of the 5th century is, of course, the stuff of fiction and mythology, yet they were the intellectual basis for the early Japanese state. The myths and beliefs outlined were designed to strengthen a political system which put the imperial family and its allied clans at the top thus, the histories describe a hierarchy which put the gods of the imperial family at the top of the heavenly hierarchy.
Hence, the events described in these histories saw the use of religion to support political arrangements. The early Japanese saw religion and politics as much the same thing.
The myths form the earliest recordings of the Shinto religion which is native to Japan. One of the main gods was Amaterasu Omikami, the sun goddess, from whom the imperial family descended. A pantheon of gods was described in the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki, beginning with Izanami and Izanagi, who created the world, and other gods. In Japan’s earliest histories, however, the story is told at greater length. Article 3 of this constitution stated in its entirety ‘The Emperor is sacred and inviolable’.
The concept that the emperors and empresses of Japan are descended from gods was enshrined in the Shinto religion, in Japan’s earliest histories, and in the 1889 Meiji Constitution.
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