Within the Ryōbu Shintō vision, the divine world is understood as a set of paired faces: Shinto kami and Buddhist deities are treated as two aspects of a single, deeper reality. At the center of this system stands the identification of Amaterasu Ōmikami, the Shinto sun goddess, with Dainichi Nyorai (Mahāvairocana), the cosmic Buddha of esoteric Buddhism. Amaterasu is revered as a manifestation or “trace” of Dainichi, while Dainichi is regarded as the hidden, original ground of her radiance. In this way, the most luminous symbol of the Shinto cosmos is bound to the central Buddha of Shingon thought, and devotion can flow toward either aspect without breaking the unity of the whole.

Around this central pairing, many other kami are interpreted as manifestations of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Hachiman, for example, a widely venerated kami of protection and war, is often linked with Amitābha (Amida) and honored in a distinctly Buddhist style as a bodhisattva-like protector of the realm. Local shrine deities, including major figures such as Toyouke-Ōmikami, are similarly associated with particular Buddhas or bodhisattvas, chosen according to symbolic or doctrinal affinity. In shrine–temple complexes, these kami are worshipped together with their Buddhist counterparts, so that offerings and prayers address a single sacred presence under two complementary names.

This syncretic landscape also gives rise to figures known as gongen, deities explicitly understood as kami that are manifestations of Buddhist beings. Such gongen, along with other kami–Buddha pairings, embody the conviction that the visible, local gods are compassionate adaptations of a more universal, Buddhist truth. The Ryōbu Shintō pantheon, therefore, does not so much introduce new gods as it reorganizes and reinterprets existing kami and Buddhist deities into a carefully articulated network of correspondences, with the Amaterasu–Dainichi relationship serving as its defining axis.