CCWV.LIFE Support This Site

Shinbutsu bunri

1868 · Japan (Japan)

In the first months of the Meiji restoration the new government ordered the separation of the kami from the buddhas: shinbutsu bunri. Buddhist images were removed from shrines, shrine priests who were also monks were laicized, and a thousand years of fusion was undone by decree. In places the order lit a fuse: crowds and local officials destroyed temples, statues, and sutras in the haibutsu kishaku violence. The separation created "Shinto" as a distinct religion in law, at the cost of a heritage the country could not recover.

Tagged: Shinto State Shinto

The Event

Date
1868 (exact)
Also called
the separation of Shinto and Buddhism
Era
Meiji and State Shinto; Standard periodization of Shinto history
Location
Japan; today Japan
Traditions
Shinto
Streams
State Shinto
Key figures
Emperor Meiji

How the Tradition Tells It

The separation fell very unevenly. Some districts saw temples burned and treasures destroyed; in others the edicts were applied on paper and neighbours went on worshipping together. The national decree is one event; its local histories are thousands.

Connections

Illustration for Heian; shinbutsu-shūgō History Event Heian; shinbutsu-shūgō 794-1185 follows from

Primary Sources

  • The Meiji separation edicts of 1868.

Secondary Sources

  • Breen, John, and Mark Teeuwen. A New History of Shinto. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
  • Hardacre, Helen. Shinto: A History. Oxford University Press, 2017.

Provenance: HIST-0910; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-28.

Related on This Site

Illustration for Meiji Constitution History Event Meiji Constitution 1889 Illustration for Shinto Directive History Event Shinto Directive 1945 Illustration for Shrine registration system History Event Shrine registration system 1871 Illustration for State Shinto History Event State Shinto 1868-1945 A text in Classical Japanese Language Classical Japanese The classical written language of Japan, in which the norito prayers and the early chronicles are composed. A gohei, the paper streamer wand used in reciting norito Prayer or Creed Norito Formal ritual prayers in classical Japanese, recited by priests to the kami at shrine festivals and rites. Two hyperboloid cooling towers venting steam at a nuclear power plant. Technology Nuclear power The reactor judged apart from the bomb: prudence, waste, and descendants on one side of the ledger, decarbonization arithmetic on the other; and no magisterium with a binding word. Visitors passing under the great wooden torii at the entrance to Ise Grand Shrine. Tradition & Science Shinto A tradition without a creed for science to contradict: kami in the landscape, a shrine rebuilt on schedule for thirteen centuries as a living school of craft, and modern flashpoints in nuclear pollution and the definition of death.