Caste and religion in Japan. Shintoism.

Religious origin of the Japanese caste systemThe caste system may have developed as early as the eighth century AD. The Japanese population was divided into two groups according to Shinto concepts of purity. Shintoism was basically a primitive folk religion and Shinto concepts equated goodness and godliness with purity and cleanliness. Shinto held that impurities could cling to people, making them evil or sinful.

Komin (“acceptable citizens”) or ryomin (“good citizens”) were engaged in agriculture. They belonged to the state and had a duty to pay tax in labour and in kind. The other group was called shiyumin (privately owned people) or senmin (“despised citizens”) because of their non- agricultural and unproductive occupations.

Kan Takayuki suggests that senmin were seen as religious people possessing a special talent which enabled them to interact with the mystical world. Some senmin were also called hafurinotami because they performed hafuri ritual duties. They were untouchable because of some ambiguous feeling involving both fear and reverence. Because of these special powers, senmin could have been a political threat to the Japanese Emperor, a living god and the master Shinto-priest who was supposed to have the same mystical powers. The symbolic power of the purity of the Emperor was enhanced by degrading the senmin class. The Emperor was in the highest position and the senmin were at the lowest in a kind of bipolar religious status. In order to enhance the Emperor’s religious power, senmin were placed under the direct control of the Emperor or some other powerful clans.

This discriminatory structure of society was strengthened when Buddhism penetrated Japan. Taboos on meat-eating, animal slaughter and leather-making became generalized and were extrapolated to concerns about the impurity of handling meat and eventually with handling dead humans as well. Consequently, anyone who engaged in related activities was, by definition, impure and to be avoided. Pollution could be caused by contact with the bodies of dead animals, and thus came to be associated with leather work. Gradually the Shinto concepts of imi (taboo) and kegare (pollution) became linked to the Buddhist prohibition on taking any life. First proclamations which outlawed the eating of flesh of certain animals occurred in AD 676. The Edo period (1603 – 1868) Discrimination based upon Buddhist religious concepts was firmly implanted in the Japanese mentality during the Edo period (Edo jidai).

Below the Tenno Heika (emperor) and the daimyo (feudal lord) there was the samurai (warrior- administrator), the nofu (farmer), the jukurenko (skilled artisan) and the shonin (merchant). All those people had “acceptable” occupations. Below them, senmin practised “unacceptable” and “despised” occupations, “tainted” with ritual impurity, involving special mystical powers, linked to magicians or shamans. They had their own temples and were not allowed to visit other religious sites.

During this period, senmin were divided into two groups, eta and hinin. Eta (“full of filth” – they were also given derogatory names such as beast, humble, ignoble, servant) was an inherited status, passed on to one’s children. Marriage was permitted, but only with a fellow eta. Hinin (“non-human”) became a status imposed as a punishment for:1. running away from your village;2. petty theft by youths under the age of 15;3. participating in failed double suicides;4. running illegal gambling games, etc.