The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1307 page)

 
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(Jap., ‘state Shinto’). In Japan, the system of state-supported Shinto shrines, ceremonies, and education which the government administered from the early Meiji period until the end of the Second World War. The Meiji government attempted to provide a sense of national and cultural identity by restoring the ancient ideal of ‘the unity of religious rites and government (
saisei itchi
)’. Shrine Shinto was separated from Buddhism and combined with the Shinto of the Imperial House. At the core of Kokka Shint
was the belief in the divinity of the emperor and the uniqueness of Japan's national polity (
kokutai
). Kokka Shint
was abolished by the Allied Powers in 1945 in their Shinto Directive which prohibited the control, support, and dissemination of Shinto by the government. This separation of government and religion was subsequently incorporated into the constitution of Japan.

 
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Kokoro
.

Jap. reading of the Chin. character
hsin
, the fundamental and interior nature of a person, thus virtually equivalent to buddha-nature (
bussho
,
buddhat
).

 
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(Jap.). The fundamental disposition of will and longing to find truth and enlightenment.

 
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(Jap.), National Learning or Japanese Studies. Its foremost task was to study ancient Japanese literature by means of scrutinizing the exact meaning of ancient words, and for that reason, Kokugaku as an academic discipline can be defined as a school that relied on philology as its methodological tool to bring out the ethos of Japanese tradition freed from foreign ideas and thoughts.
The Hirata School in the late Tokugawa period reckoned
Kada no Azumaro
(1669–1736),
Kamo no Mabuchi
(1697–1769),
Motoori Norinaga
(1730–1801), and Hirata Atsutane (1776–1843) as the four major exponents of the Kokugaku Movement. The honour as its founder, however, would go to Keich
, a Shingon priest and scholar, who introduced a new academic standard for the study of ancient Japanese literature.