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Ōmononushi

Issue 282 of the Journal of Shinto Studies (神道宗教) included an article by Adachi Ryō, “Thoughts about the Divine Status of Ōmononushi-no-kami in the Kojiki”. Ōmononushi is the main kami of Ōmiwa Jinja in Nara Prefecture, which is one of the oldest jinja in Japan, and he is an important figure in several myths. In this article, Adachi argues that the myths all portray Ōmononushi as a kami who saves people in distress, particularly the nation and the Imperial line. This conflicts with the standard interpretation of one myth, in… Read More »Ōmononushi

Yoshida Shinto

Issue 282 of the Journal of Shinto Studies (神道宗教) contained two articles about Yoshida Shinto: “The Early Modern Reception of the Yoshida Family’s Medieval Research on Shrines”, by Arai Daisuke, and “A Study of the Formation Process of Kiyohara Senken’s Gyōjihi”, by Nitta Keizō. I am not going to get into the details, because both papers are careful philological studies looking at the sources used in creating historical works, but I think it would be useful to say something about Yoshida Shinto. Yoshida Shinto was created by Yoshida Kanetomo (1435–1511),… Read More »Yoshida Shinto

Ujigami Jinja and Sūkei Jinja

There is a fundamental division between types of jinja in Jinja Shinto. There are ujigami jinja, and there are sūkei jinja. An ujigami jinja is supported by the people who live in the area around that jinja, while a sūkei jinja is supported by people who feel a connection to the jinja, no matter where they live. Historically, almost all jinja were ujigami jinja. Travel was difficult and infrequent, and so the only jinja that could become sūkei jinja were those that supported their own organisation of travelling priests. Those… Read More »Ujigami Jinja and Sūkei Jinja

Virtual Sanpai

Issue 279/280 of the Journal of Shintō Studies included an article by Takeda Atsushi (武田淳) entitled “What is Virtual Visiting to a shrine? Focusing on Shintō Shrines”. In Japanese, he talks about “virtual sanpai”, which is the term I will use here, because English doesn’t really have a good word for “sanpai” (参拝). The first point he makes is that the English word “virtual” does not mean quite the same as its Japanese translations, including the katakana word “baacharu”. In English, a “virtual X” is equivalent to an X in… Read More »Virtual Sanpai

Legally Merging Jinja

The Komorebi column in the September 14th issue of Jinja Shinpō was by a priest who is also a lawyer (kind of — he can charge for legal advice, but the Japanese system doesn’t perfectly map onto UK or US ones). He was writing about the problem of jinja that are both religious corporations, and hard to maintain, and he wanted to make three points. The first is that merging two jinja legally does not necessarily mean merging them religiously. One jinja might simply be moved to the precincts of… Read More »Legally Merging Jinja

The Dance Goes On

In 1950, Jinja Honchō (which was very new at that point) commissioned the creation of two sacred dances: Asahi-no-mai (Dance of the Rising Sun), for chief priests, and Toyosaka-no-mai (Dance of, er, the Rising Sun), for “young women”. The idea seems to have been to create dances that could be taught to all priests, miko, and local young women, so that sacred dance could be offered as a standard part of matsuri. Toyosaka-no-mai is widely offered, and is one of the two standard pieces of miko kagura — the other… Read More »The Dance Goes On