As for the third stage, it is significant that both of the Japanese history books state the advent of a pair of deities after those of the three or four pairs of deities, a god Izanagi-no-mikoto and a goddess Izanami-no-mikoto. It is this pair who would mediate between the Heaven and Japan, because they would have given birth to the Japanese Archipelago on a floating bridge of Heaven. In this sentence, the Shinto is not universal but inherent and vernacular religion limiting the sphere within the Japanese Islands. In essence, it has no inclination to be propagated beyond its own territory, though it was regarded as an aggressive religion before the WWII.
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