This is a collection of sixteen wide-ranging papers, apparently on an ad hoc basis, written by some leading scholars in the field. Interestingly, individual chapters are available to be bought separately, and you can see the price listed below in the list of contents. Surprisingly, though, the summing up is available free, and this is included below in abridged form. Perhaps this format marks a new development in academic publishing which will soon become the new normal.

Below follow 1) Publisher’s blurb; 2) List of contents; 3) Editor’s Conclusion

Exploring Shinto

Edited by Michael Pye (Published by Equinox, 2020 : See here)

Publisher’s blurb…

Shinto permeates the religious landscape of Japan and is a major key to the understanding of Japanese culture and society. But what is it?

If ideological shortcuts are avoided there is no simple answer. Yet this book will guide students and general readers through many aspects of Shinto both today and in its history. It contains much information about sacred Shinto shrines and the divinities (the kami) which are the focus of devotion there. These numerous divinities have been viewed in different ways in the course of time, and contributions by specialists shed much light on the role played by Buddhism in this regard. Moreover, several fascinating religious movements or “sects” which share in the wider pattern of Shinto are also introduced and discussed. Oversimplified views may be challenged here, but the result is a volume in which “Shinto” is explored in a wide and illuminating perspective by an international team of scholars. It provides a refreshing and much-needed resource for all who are interested in the subject.

Table of Contents

Preliminaries
Preface and Acknowledgements vii-viii Michael Pye FREE

1 Concepts and Viewpoints
1. What is Shinto? 3-33 Michael Pye £17.502.
2 Essentialism in Early Shinto Studies 34-56 Gaétan Rappo £17. 50
3 On Writing the History of Shinto 57-75 Marcus Teeuwen £17.50

2 Exploring Borderlands of Shinto
4. Medieval Tendai Buddhist Views of Kami 79-103 Yeonjoo Park £17.50
5. Conceptions of Kami in the Writings of Tendai Monk Jien 104-120 Vladlena Fedianiya £17.50
6. Buddhist-Shinto Syncretization at the Medieval Suwa Shrine
121-135 Iwasawa Tomoko £17.50
7. Underground Buddhism at the Ise Shrines 136-150 D. M. Moerman £17.50
8. Shinto Spaces and Shinbutsu Interaction in the Noh 151-172 Dunja Jelesijevic £17.50
9. Buddhist-style Pilgrimage with Shinto Meanings 173-185 Michael Pye £17.50
10. Why does Shin Buddhism Reject the Worship of the Kami? 186-198 Robert Rhodes £17.50
11. Multiple Divinities in Shin Buddhist Temples 199-217 Markus Ruesch £17.50
12. Responsive Reflections on Buddhism and Shinto 218-227 Katja Triplett £17.50

3 The Puzzle and Fascination of Sect Shinto
13. Sect Shinto and the Case of Ooyashirokyo 231-249 Michael Pye £17.50
14. Meiji Government Policy, Sect Shinto and Fusokyo Shishino Fumio £17.50
15. Introducing the Faith of Shinshukyo 260-267 Yoshimura Masanori £17.50
16. Tenrikyo and Omotokyo in the Context of Kyoha Shinto 268-303 Avery Morrow £17.50

Postscript
17. A Postscript on Shinto Diversity 305-307 Michael Pye FREE

End Matter Index 308-327 Michael Pye FREE

***************

A postscript on Shinto diversity
Michael Pye

Shinto is often presented, especially but not
only by its exponents, as a single coherent religion with distinct
and regular characteristics. But whether we probe into its complex
history or attempt to make a synchronic cross-section at any
one period, including the present, such coherence is very difficult
to pin down. The central section of our book illustrates this very
well. The difficulty arises partly because the various schools of
Japanese Buddhism, not all considered above, had differing modes
of interaction with Shinto shrines, Shinto divinities and the many
other forms of religious activity which simply crossed boundaries.
Another major complication is provided by the popularity of
mountain cults and the activities of the mountain ascetics (yamabushi
山伏), whose traditions and teachings frequently crossed any
putative borders between major traditions

Now one might have expected that successive attempts to assert
a central authority in what may very loosely be called the Shinto
world, whether based on Ise Shrine or on the Yoshida Shrine in
Kyoto, would have created greater coherence. But the magnetic
pull of other major shrines such as Izumo, Kasuga, Suwa, Atsuta,
Konpira, Sumiyoshi and so on, and the development of sub-shrines
which could be revered away from their main holy sites worked
against this. Moreover, networks or chains of special shrine cults
developed for particularly popular divinities such as Hachiman,
Tenjin (Michizane), Inari or Ebisu, and these followed dynamics
of their own, with important regional centres flourishing down to
the present day.

One might also imagine that when Shinto was heavily politicized
and ideologized in the wake of the Meiji Restoration, central
authority would create new unity. To some extent this was true,
but at the same time this very intention led to the splitting away
of several enthusiastic groups that were defined as “religious” in a
sense supposedly current in the western world. This was, broadly
speaking, the genesis of Sect Shintō, as seen in the third part of
this volume, and its effects have remained down to the present.
The leaders of Shinto sects are quite clear today, as earlier, that
their groups are mostly intended to be Shinto-oriented in character,
which is certainly not the case for all of Japan’s numerous new
religious movements.

Following the disestablishment of Shinto as a state religion at the end of World War II, a good proportion of shrines are associated under the Jinja Honchō 神社本庁 (usual English name: The Association of Shinto Shrines), and there is regular evidence of central guidance and policy signposting at shrines. In wide evidence is an instruction on precisely how to
pray when visiting a shrine, a matter about which casual visitors
are not always clear. Yet, overall, the diversity among the shrines
and their various networks persists. There is even some recognized
diversity of practice over the forms of prayer just mentioned, for
example regarding the number of handclaps. It may therefore be
said that Shinto is “particularistic” in two senses. First it is mainly
located within one ethnic perspective, the Japanese, even if not
all Japanese people are beholden to it. It is not a “universal” or
“world” religion. Second, however, it is particularistic in its plurality
even within that ethnos itself. This is in fact what lends it such
great variety and its own special fascination. Diversity in the world
of Shinto gives it a rather wide attraction among the populace of
Japan and contributes to its social resilience.