A Transnational Grassroots Movement: Jinja Shinto and Japanese Religions in the Pre-Colonial Joseon Society

The international relationship between Japan and Korea used to be characterised by cultural exchanges, economic trade, political contact, and military confrontations. During the ancient era, Buddhism, Chinese-influenced cuisine, Han characters, and other technology came to Japan via Korea and/or the East China Sea. The tendency of social flow began to reverse when Japan invaded Joseon (early modern Korea) in 1592. Afterward, the social success of Japan's modernisation under the central leadership of Emperor Meiji (1867- 1912) instigated in earnest the globalisation of Japanese religiosity. Then, what kind of faith communities came to Joseon before the Japanese annexation of Korea (1910)? How did they settle down? What was the cultural environment for new beliefs? What was their connection with the state in the political transition era of the peninsula? This paper explores the historical narratives of Jinja Shinto, Kyoha Shinto, Japanese Buddhism, and Japanese Christianity in the pre-colonial society of the Joseon dynasty. The geopolitical confusion and change of East Asia (Japan, Korea, and China) over the process of modernisation is argued as one of the key factors through which the maritime beliefs could transnationally root without the legal restriction of the local authority for Japanese residents.