Buddhism in Japan movement to eradicate Buddhism and bring Shinto to ascendancy arose throughout the country due to the strong connections of Buddhism to the Shōguns. During the Meiji period (1868–1912), after a coup in 1868, Japan abandoned its feudal system and opened up to Western modernism. Shinto became the state religion. Within the Buddhist establishment the Western world was seen as a threat as well as a challenge to stand up to. Buddhist institutions had a simple choice: adapt or perish. Rinzai and Soto Zen chose to adapt, trying to modernize Zen in accord with Western insights, while simultaneously maintaining a Japanese
Faith in Buddhism bird-like deities and violent spirits which previously were the focus of pre-Buddhist cults became guardians of the Buddhist teaching. This process of adopting deities as part of Buddhism often occurred when Buddhist devotees or monks did not fully renounce their former devotions when embracing Buddhism. In the early Pāli scriptures, as well as in some customs in traditional Buddhist societies, traces can still be found of the period that Buddhism competed with "nāga" worship and assimilated some of its features. In some Buddhist countries like Japan, a perspective arose of the human world as a microcosm of the macrocosmic realms