 Three major philosophical sources have fed into Japanese thought since ancient times up through the present, two additional ones being added in modern times (that is, post-1868). First has been Shintō. In its archaic form, especially before its contact with the literary philosophical heritage of continental Asia, it is better termed proto-Shintō because it only loosely resembles what we now know as Shintō. Institutional Shintō thought did not significantly begin until the medieval period and today’s Shintō philosophy mostly originates in the Native Studies tradition beginning in the eighteenth century. That trajectory of Shintō doctrinal development continued with the rise of nationalism and ethnocentrism under the rubric of Shrine Shintō, the institutional arm of State Shintō ideology, which cast a pall on creative philosophical thinking from the early twentieth century until 1945. Postwar Japan has witnessed a range of renewed Shintō philosophies, some in the direction of a return to right-wing ideology, others toward a more liberalized version inspired by Western models of liberal Christian theology and comparative religious scholarship.