Yoshida Kanetomo

Yoshida Kanetomo (吉田 兼倶, 1435–1511) was a Japanese Shinto priest of the Sengoku period.

He was a seminal figure in the evolution of a coherent descriptive and interpretive schema of Shinto ritual and mythology.

[3] Prior to Kanetomo, the understanding and practice of Shinto was intermingled with Japanese Buddhism.

[4] This theory proposed and presumed that the resulting dual entity would necessarily have a fundamental Buddhist core, and that any Shinto aspect was secondary.

[5] In the late Kamakura period, a counter-theory arose which also began with the notion of such dual entities; however, the counter-theorists construed that the kami side was primary and the Buddhist one was secondary.