• The Critical Review of Religion and Culture
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• no.26
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• pp.150-193
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• 2014

The point in the thought of modern Japanese State Shinto(國家神道) liesin the concept of "kokutai"(國體) which was highly connected with theideology of Emperor system. The kokutai, mainly made up of "the oracle byAmaterasu blessing Japan to be as eternal as heaven and earth"(天壤無窮の神勅), "an unbroken line of Emperors"(萬世一系), and the notion of"Emperor as living God"(現人神), was clearly manifested at Kokutai noHongi(國體の本義), published by the Ministry of Education, Science andCulture 1n 1937. Then, the notion of public-private represented by "selflessdevotion"(滅私奉公) was the prevailing substance of that kokutai. Thepurpose of this essay is to examine the way how the "theology of kokutai" -kokutai ideology based upon such a notion of public-private represented by"selfless devotion" - had been described at Kokutai no Hongi, and tounderstand the mythological, theological meaning of that "theology ofkokutai" associated with the religiosity of State Shinto. Additionally, this essaywill explore a kind of aesthetical way how to reproduce the State Shinto incontemporary Japanese society from the perspective of "collusion betweenpublic and private". In doing so, this paper will pay attention to the principaltexts of State Shinto such as Meiji Constitution(大日本帝國憲法, 1889),Imperial Rescript on Education(敎育勅語, 1890), Kamunagara no Taido(惟神の大道, 1940), Shinmin no Michi(臣民の道, 1941), Kokushi Kaisetsu(國史槪說, 1943), and Jinja Hongi(神社本義,1944), including Kokutai no Hongi.