Discover Japan's many religions

Religion in Japan is a rich tapestry of diverse traditions with a history of nearly 2,000 years. Many Japanese people display some kind of alleg-iance to more than one religion; a person will usually be expected to have a Shinto wedding and a Budd-hist funeral, though Buddhist and secular weddings are also possible.

With this may go a personal or family interest in a particular Buddhist de-nomination or practice, or member-ship of one of the various new rel-igions which attract almost a third of the population.

These different forms of religion have separate organizations, build-ings, festivals, sacred writings, ministers or priests and so on. How-ever, it should always be remem-bered that the paths of these religions have touched at many points in Japanese history, and that they still meet in the lives of many Japanese people. For this reason it is possible to speak both of 'Japanese religions' and of 'Japanese religion' especially as the Japanese language itself does not usually distinguish between the singular and the plural.