Shinbutsu bunri

However, the tendency to oppose Buddhism as a foreign import and to uphold Shinto as the native religion can be seen already during the early modern era, partly as a nationalistic reaction.

[3] This order triggered the haibutsu kishaku, a violent anti-Buddhist movement that caused the forcible closure of thousands of temples, the confiscation of their land, the forced return of many monks to lay life or their transformation into Shinto priests, and the destruction of numerous books, statues and other Buddhist artefacts.

[5] The policy failed in its short-term aims and was ultimately abandoned, but it was successful in the long term in creating a new religious status quo in which Shinto and Buddhism are perceived as different and independent.

[6] The government did cause the diffusion of the idea that Shinto was the true religion of the Japanese, finally revealed after remaining for a long time hidden behind Buddhism.

[...] The surprise of many of my informants regarding the existence of Buddhist Inari temples shows the success of the government's attempt to create separate conceptual categories regarding sites and certain identities, although practice remains multiple and nonexclusive.

[11] For example, the giant Niō (仁王), wooden statues of guardian beings, at the entrance of the Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū, a shrine in Kamakura, were objects of Buddhist worship and therefore illegal where they were, so they were sold to Jufuku-ji, where they still stand today.

[3][13] To avoid the destruction of material illegal under the new rules, Shinto and Buddhist priests invented traditions, genealogies and other information that justified its presence.