JAPAN
Th e ancient Japanese had a complex set of animistic religious
beliefs. Many historians and archaeologists have argued that
the ancient Japanese had no religion because they had no
church authorities and no theology. However, the Japanese
were a very spiritual people, and the fact that they had no
central authorities or scriptures was actually part of their re-
ligious view, because they believed that no one person had a
monopoly on spirituality. To them every human being had
the potential to communicate with the numerous spirits that
made up their world.
Th is is not to say that they did not have people with spe-
cial spiritual talent. Th e legendary Queen Himiko (fl. 200s
b.c.e) was reputedly a sorceress whose powers helped her
maintain control of her fractious, warlike people. Th e second
monarch aft er her rule was a 12-year-old girl who was also a
sorceress. Th is suggests that ancient Japanese beliefs allowed
for magic and for people who were specialists in it.
Th e Japanese developed a concept now called kami. Th e
word kami implies both an individual spirit and a spiritual-
ity that stems from great power or force. Th us not every tree
had its own kami, but very big trees, by virtue of the spiritual
force their size gave them, had their own individual spirits.
Mountains likewise had spirits because of the power their size
imparted, as did lakes, rivers, and other features of the land-
scape. Animals could have their own kami, but animal spirits
oft en manifested themselves as much larger than the ordi-
nary animal, showing that they had spiritual power. Th ese
special spirits could be huge wolves, pigs, or deer and were
oft en guardians of forests. People could talk to these special
animals and the animals could talk back.
Th e exact language spoken by the ancient Japanese is de-
bated by archaeologists. Th eir names for their gods may have
been diff erent from those recorded when the Japanese became
a literate people. Since each area could have its own special
spirits, spiritual beliefs probably varied somewhat from place
to place. In essence, the Japanese believed that the earth was
special only to those who lived on it. Th eir gods were spirits
with powers much greater than those of human beings, but
they were mortal and subject to many of the inconveniences
and miseries that human beings endure.
Th e world had an earth god and a sky goddess who were
married to each other but could not embrace. Th e islands of
Japan were created in the ocean by a husband-and-wife team
later known as Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto.
Izanami no Mikoto died while giving birth to the god of fi re,
and she went to the land of the dead. Early references to the
sun god indicate that he was male, though it is possible that
some Japanese thought of this god as female.
Other gods represented the principal concerns of the Japa-
nese. For example, there was a food goddess, Uke-Mochi, who
was murdered and whose corpse gave rise to rice, millet, wheat,
and red beans. Th ere was a god for hunting and a god for fi sh-
ing. Th ere were also demons that could be evil or good.
Th e massive burial mounds of the 300s b.c.e.–200s c.e.
in Japan suggest that people believed in an aft erlife and may
have practiced ancestor worship. Local warlords and Japanese
monarchs were entombed under these mounds, atop each of
which was a shrine, probably for people asking the help of the
spirit of the person in the tomb. Near the end of the period
during which the tombs were built, some had passages into
the crypt, perhaps for people to go inside to communicate
with the dead. Tombs were typically surrounded by small ce-
ramic fi gures placed upright and facing outward, perhaps to
ward off evil spirits.KOREA
Two factors have hindered research into ancient Korea’s re-
ligions. First, several military invasions since ancient times
have resulted in the looting and destruction of ancient re-
ligious sites. Second, many of the best religious sites are in
North Korea, whose government allows foreign archaeolo-
gists little access to them. Th e existence in Korea of burial
mounds that seem to be duplicates of the massive burial
mounds of Japan suggests to many archaeologists that some
ancient Koreans were of the same ethnic group as the ancient
Japanese and shared their religious beliefs and customs. It
is possible that three distinct religious traditions held sway
in ancient Korea, each animistic. One was that which was
shared with the Japanese. Th e other two were derived from
northern and central Asia.
Buddhism probably fi rst reached Korea in 372 c.e. In 384
c.e. an Indian monk named Marananda converted the royal
family of the kingdom of Paekche, which formed the western
part of Korea. Paekche swift ly became a Buddhist nation, but
little of the process of converting its people is known because
most of Paekche’s ancient sites have been destroyed. Th e
kingdom of Silla in the southeast of Korea was introduced to
Buddhism in 424 c.e., but the religion did not take hold un-
til the 500s c.e., when the royal family converted to the new
faith. Th roughout the era of Buddhism’s ascendancy Koreans’
animistic beliefs survived, mostly in the form of magical ritu-
als performed by shamans.INDIA
Not much is known about the religion of the Harappan civili-
zation (2600–1500 b.c.e.) of the Indus River area. Among the
remains of that civilization are images of a man with antlers
on his head, who may represent a god, and small statues of
a large-breasted woman, who may have been a fertility god-
dess. Bulls are prominent in Harappan art and may repre-
sent a reverence for cattle that would later be continued in
Hindu religious beliefs. In the rest of India animism underlay
the numerous religions of peoples across the land. Animism
never disappeared in ancient India, and it lay behind some of
the magic and mysticism of country people. In the jungles of
India were Stone Age peoples, clad only in leaves around their
hips and who hunted with poisoned arrows and were said to
kidnap travelers to sacrifi ce to their gods.religion and cosmology: Asia and the Pacific 845