section_path: History/Early development
section_name: Early development
paragraph_text: Early development
  
  Earhart commented that Shinto ultimately "emerged from the beliefs and practices of prehistoric Japan", although Kitagawa noted that it was questionable whether prehistoric Japanese religions could be accurately termed "early Shinto". It was the Yayoi period of Japanese prehistory which first left traces of material and iconography prefiguring that later included in Shinto. Kami were worshipped at various landscape features during this period; at this point, their worship consisted largely of beseeching and placating them, with little evidence that they were viewed as compassionate entities. Archaeological evidence suggests that dotaku bronze bells, bronze weapons, and metal mirrors played an important role in kami -based ritual during the Yayoi period.
  
  In this early period, Japan was not a unified state; by the Kofun period it was divided among Uji (clans), each with their own tutelary kami, the ujigami. Korean migration during the Kofun period brought Confucianism and Buddhism to Japan. Buddhism had a particular impact on the kami cults. Migrant groups and Japanese who increasingly aligned with these foreign influences built Buddhist temples in various parts of the Japanese islands. Several rival clans who were more hostile to these foreign influences began adapting the shrines of their kami to more closely resemble the new Buddhist structures. In the late 5th century, the imperial dynasty leader Yūryaku declared himself daiō ("great king") and established hegemony over much of Japan. From the early 6th century CE, the style of ritual favored by the Yamato began spreading to other kami shrines around Japan as the Yamato extended their territorial influence. Buddhism was also growing. According to the Nihon Shoki, in 587 Emperor Yōmei converted to Buddhism and under his sponsorship Buddhism spread.
  
  In the mid-7th century, a legal code called Ritsuryō was adopted to establish a Chinese-style centralised government. As part of this, the Jingikan ("Council of Kami ") was created to conduct rites of state and coordinate provincial ritual with that in the capital. This was done according to a code of kami law called the Jingiryō, itself modelled on the Chinese Book of Rites. The Jingikan was located in the palace precincts and maintained a register of shrines and priests. An annual calendar of state rites were introduced to help unify Japan through kami worship. These legally mandated rites were outlined in the Yōrō Code of 718, and expanded in the Jogan Gishiki of circa 872 and the Engi Shiki of 927. Under the Jingikan, some shrines were designated as kansha ("official shrines") and given specific privileges and responsibilities. Hardacre saw the Jingikan as "the institutional origin of Shinto".
  
  In the early 8th century, the Emperor Tenmu commissioned a compilation of the legends and genealogies of Japan's clans, resulting in the completion of the Kojiki in 712. Designed to legitimate the ruling dynasty, this text created a fixed version of various stories previously circulating in oral tradition. The Kojiki omits any reference to Buddhism, in part because it sought to ignore foreign influences and emphasise a narrative stressing indigenous elements of Japanese culture. Several years later, the Nihon shoki was written. Unlike the Kojiki, this made various references to Buddhism, and was aimed at a foreign audience. Both of these texts sought to establish the imperial clan's descent from the sun kami Amaterasu, although there were many differences in the cosmogonic narrative they provided. Quickly, the Nihon shoki eclipsed the Kojiki in terms of its influence. Other texts written at this time also drew on oral traditions regarding the kami. The Sendari kuji hongi for example was probably composed by the Mononobe clan while the Kogoshui was probably put together for the Imbe clan, and in both cases they were designed to highlight the divine origins of these respective lineages. A government order in 713 called on each region to produce fudoki, records of local geography, products, and stories, with the latter revealing more traditions about the kami which were present at this time.
  
  From the 8th century, kami worship and Buddhism were thoroughly intertwined in Japanese society. While the emperor and court performed Buddhist rites, they also performed others to honor the kami. Tenmu for example appointed a virginal imperial princess to serve as the Saiō, a form of priestess, at the Ise Shrine on his behalf, a tradition continued by subsequent emperors. From the 8th century onward up until the Meiji era, the kami were incorporated into a Buddhist cosmology in various ways. One view is that the kami realised that like all other life-forms, they too were trapped in the cycle of samsara (rebirth) and that to escape this they had to follow Buddhist teachings. Alternative approaches viewed the kami as benevolent entities who protected Buddhism, or that the kami were themselves Buddhas, or beings who had achieved enlightenment. In this, they could be either hongaku, the pure spirits of the Buddhas, or honji suijaku, transformations of the Buddhas in their attempt to help all sentient beings.