Before Buddhism entered Japan, the Japanese lacked a unified cosmological framework. Although the animistic Shintō belief system, which is the worshipping of nature, provided a basic cosmological framework, it was not a coherent framework. For instance, Macfarlane (2007: 179) argues “Shinto is just a ceremonial system” because concepts such as life and death, good and evil, heaven and hell, and so forth were not articulated properly. Shinto, therefore, remained fragmented because spiritual aspects differed. However, the introduction of Buddhism integrated the above concepts into unified cosmological framework. In turn, this framework gave rise to beliefs and practices in order to reach salvation which that affected Japanese society. Furthermore, this promise of salvation became desirable, leading to named aristocrats becoming patrons of a specific Buddhist sect or school.
