2018

Japan will be getting a new Tennō at the beginning of May next year. There are, as might be expected, many ceremonies associated with this, but from the Shinto perspective the most important is the Daijōsai. This will be held next November, and I will almost certainly write an essay about it for my Patreon when it gets a bit closer. There are, however, many preparations needed for the ceremony, and Jinja Shinpō published an article about the first last week. The offerings made during the ceremony include two kinds… Read More »Preparing for the Daijōsai

Recently, there has been trouble at Yasukuni Jinja, and the chief priest has had to resign. Jinja Shinpō reported it, but they were very coy, and only said that he had made “improper remarks” in an internal meeting at the jinja. So, obviously, I had to Google it to find out what he had said. It appears that he said that when the Tennō travels to distant places to honour the war dead, it pushes Yasukuni Jinja further out of people’s awareness (presumably as the most appropriate place to honour… Read More »Trouble at Yasukuni

Matsuri can be difficult to maintain. Unlike buildings, which will stand there for at least a few years even if no-one does anything to look after them, a matsuri needs people to perform it. Those people need to know how to perform it, and need to have the necessary items. Naturally, this makes more elaborate matsuri more difficult to preserve, as there are more things to learn, and more items to prepare and maintain. On the other hand, a more elaborate matsuri is also more interesting, and people may be… Read More »Maintaining Matsuri

The Tennō often visits different areas of Japan, to open major events, or see the victims of natural disasters. This is a major part of his job. When he visits a prefecture in Japan, he almost always sends offerings to certain jinja, the ones that received state offerings before the end of the war, in each prefecture. These offerings are not widely reported, but Jinja Shinpō always has a detailed account. The word used to describe them strongly suggests that the offering is of money, but I have no idea… Read More »Imperial Offerings

Jinja Shinpō is currently running a series of articles on important Shinto figures of the Meiji period. This has included people who are very famous generally, such as Meiji Tennō, and also people who are almost unknown even within Shinto circles now, but were important at the time. (They are up to eighteen without covering any women, as far as I recall, but this is no cause for surprise; the Meiji government was not keen on important women.) Last week, the article was about Koto’oka Hirotsunë, one of the less… Read More »Meiji Jinja Policy

In the shadows of the jinja precincts, the chief priest’s brother lies in wait, katana gripped in his hand. The rage and resentment that has festered ever since he was forced to resign almost boils over, and he glances at his wife, the woman he met in the city’s pleasure quarter. Her katana catches the light for a moment. The chief priest arrives, and the two of them leap from the shadows. In moments, the priest lies bleeding to death on the ground. The assassin kills his wife, and then… Read More »Scandal! Scandal! Read All About It!