How Japan invented the word religion

Japan didn’t have a word for “religion” until the 19th century — and when it needed one, it was mostly for diplomatic paperwork. This episode explores how Shinto was defined, separated from Buddhism, and declared a non-religious civic duty all within a few decades, and what Japanese religious life actually looks like beneath the politics — from yōkai as a technology for managing fear, to the quiet pragmatism of buying luck at a shrine on the way to an exam.