This set, as a collection of representative studies on Japanese Religions, illustrates the diversity and complexity of the Japanese religious experience, past and contemporary, while at the same time offering an overview of the most updated research in the field. The themes selected promote avenues of analysis that place the religious phenomenon in its socio-historical and cultural context. The selection demonstrates the range of religious practices and the contexts in which these practices are performed, with the aim of counterbalancing the traditional foci on either theological (doctrinal) studies or ethnographic studies only.

This collection affords a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of the nature and practice of Japanese religiosity. The framework in which the material is presented also offers an alternative to the usual chronological organization of works on Japanese religions, and to traditional arrangements of works on East Asian religions in general according to the categories of Buddhism, Confucianism, Shinto and Christianity. Although these traditional approaches are covered in the first volume, the set as a whole stresses the practice of religion, which stretches across traditions and denominations, and the pre-modern/modern divide.