History

 Shinto is different from many of the world’s religions in that it had no founder, nor does it possess a central body of scripture.

It does, however, have a firm foundation in the folk traditions of the early Japanese. These traditional stories were collected into the only two works that may be described as Shinto scripture: The Kojiki, or ‘Record of Ancient Matters’, and the Nihon Shoki or Nihongi, the ‘Chronicles of Japan’. These written records of Shinto’s spiritual origins describe how Japan and its islands were created by the gods, and how the first emperor of Japan, Jimmu, was of divine descent.