Shinto Gobusho

   'The Five Shinto Scriptures'. The name given in the late seventeenth century by Deguchi, Nobuyoshi to a collection of thirteenth-century texts of Watarai (or Ise) shinto. Five scriptures purporting to be ancient secret works restricted to members of the Watarai family aged over sixty had been produced at that time to show that the Ise outer shrine (Watarai) lineage had a scriptural canon equivalent to that of the Confucians and Buddhists. The first volume 'yamato-hime-seiki' for example explains that Great Japan is a divine land, that the safety of the land depends on the assistance of the kami, that the spiritual power of the kami is augmented when the state shows reverence, etc.. The texts were influential in the development of various views of Shinto as a way of life for ordinary people (see e.g. Yoshida, Kanetomo, Suiga shinto, Hayashi, Razan. The existence of this work stimulated Kada no Azumamaro (1669—1736) to conduct investigations into the ancient Japanese classics; researches which led to the development of the kokugaku (National Learning) movement.