Portal:Japan/Selected article/2007/July

Shinto (神道) is the native religion of Japan and was once its state religion. It involves the worship of kami (神), spirits. Some kami are local and can be regarded as the spiritual being/spirit or genius of a particular place, but other ones represent major natural objects and processes: for example, Amaterasu, the Sun goddess, or Mount Fuji. Shinto is an animistic belief system. The word Shinto was created by combining two kanji: "shin" (神)(loan words usually retain their Chinese pronunciation, hence shin not kami), meaning gods or spirits ; and "tō" (道), meaning a philosophical way or path (originally from the Chinese word dao). As such, Shinto is commonly translated as "The Way of the Gods".