Shinbutsu bunri

Shinbutsu bunri was the Meiji government’s policy, begun in 1868, to separate kami worship from Buddhism. It dismantled institutions and practices that had intertwined the two traditions for centuries.

Shinbutsu bunri edicts: Meiji-era orders that prohibited the institutional combination of kami worship and Buddhism and reassigned religious offices and property. The 1868 orders supplied the legal instruments for separation.
Meiji Restoration: The 1868 political transformation that restored imperial rule and launched Japan’s modernization as a centralized state. The new government adopted separation as part of consolidating authority after the restoration.
State Shinto: The system through which the modern Japanese state organized and promoted shrine worship as civic and national practice. Separating shrines from Buddhist institutions helped make their later state administration possible.
Religious freedom in Japan: The legal and social conditions under which religious belief and practice are protected in Japan. The policy’s state-driven reorganization complicates claims that separation simply advanced religious liberty.
Haibutsu kishaku: A movement of anti-Buddhist destruction and suppression in Japan, especially intense after the 1868 separation policy. Local actors turned separation into temple closures, confiscations, and attacks on Buddhist images.
Meiji Constitution: Japan’s 1889 constitution, which established an imperial constitutional system and addressed religious liberty within state-defined limits. Its later framework helps distinguish the initial separation policy from the state’s developing religious order.
Shinto Directive: A 1945 Allied occupation order that ended state sponsorship and control of Shinto institutions in Japan. Its reversal of state control shows how the postwar settlement addressed the religious order built after separation.
Religious persecution: The systematic restriction, punishment, or suppression of people because of their religious beliefs or practices. Anti-Buddhist violence raises the question of when administrative separation became persecution.
Shinbutsu-shūgō: The historical amalgamation of kami worship and Buddhism in Japanese religious life. The policy sought to undo the institutional entanglement this tradition had fostered.
Kokugaku: An early modern Japanese intellectual movement that studied classical texts and emphasized native traditions, including kami worship. Kokugaku ideas helped furnish an intellectual case for distinguishing kami traditions from Buddhism.

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