The back page of the April 6th issue of Jinja Shinpō was devoted to the foundation of the National Association of Sengen Jinja (全国浅間神社連合会). Sengen Jinja are those that enshrine Konohananosakuyabimë-no-mikoto (木花之佐久夜毘売命), the kami of Mt Fuji, and the article estimates there to be about 1,300 of them across Japan. (This may include subsidiary jinja in precincts — the study that Kokugakuin University did in 2007 based on the names of primary jinja only found 397.)
The meeting to launch the group was held at Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha (富士山本宮浅間大社) in Fujinomiya City, Shizuoka Prefecture, on March 9th. This jinja claims to be the primary Sengen Jinja, and that claim seems to be generally recognised. (My evidence for that is that the chief priests for the main competitors for that title attended the meeting and joined the group, so they were clearly at least willing to countenance a nominal primacy.) The date was chosen because it was the ninth (ku) day of the third (sa) month of the eighth (ya) year of Reiwa, and thus it was “sa-ku-ya”, which refers to the name of the kami.
Ninety three jinja joined the group at this meeting, and it is actively recruiting new members. (There is contact information at the bottom of the page for the chief priests of other Sengen Jinja, with an explicit note that subsidiary jinja are welcome.) The group plans to have a shared stamp for goshuin, so that people can plan to go around all the Sengen Jinja and collect the set, and Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha plans to include links to the websites of all the other members on its website, although that is still work in progress.
The foundation of this group shows that jinja that enshrine the same kami do feel that they have something in common. Similar groups already exist for other kami, such as Ōkuninushi and Susano’o (if I am remembering correctly).
On the other hand, it is not a link that is felt to be of great importance. The Sengen group has only just been founded, and fewer than a quarter of the jinja that qualify have joined — less than 10% if we take the group’s own estimate for national numbers. The other groups also cover no more than a fraction of the jinja enshrining that kami.
It is rather difficult to pin down the significance of the identity of kami in Shinto practice. Jinja do have a main kami, and the identity of that kami normally matters to the jinja. On the other hand, adherents often do not know which kami it is, and sometimes the priests do not, either. The benefits that a jinja is known for are often derived from the identity of the main kami — Tenjin for passing exams, Inari for prosperity, and so on — but people seeking a benefit tend to go to a particular jinja, rather than a particular kami. Further, the identity of the main kami can change over time, even at really important jinja like Izumo Ōyashiro, in Shimanë Prefecture, where the main kami went from being identified as Ōkuninushi to Susano’o and back again.
In practice, Jinja Shinto is “jinja first” (there’s a hint in the name). The identity of the kami is not irrelevant, but it is clearly a secondary consideration, and this also applies when jinja look for things that they have in common.
“On the other hand, adherents often do not know which kami it is, and sometimes the priests do not, either.”
I believe you have written in the past about jinja who enshrine a kami whose recorded name basically translates to “the kami who is enshrined here” or “the who kami enshrined at this particular jinja”.
Yes, that is common. The identity of kami is a lot less important in practice than one might expect.
For jinja where the identity of the kami has changed, is that something that happened gradually over time or was there a specific point or ceremony marking that?
It isn’t a deliberate process to change the kami. Instead, it tends to be a “discovery” by the priests that the kami is X, not Y. Or X and Y. Or that X is actually the same kami as Y (who is more famous). Officially, the kami has not changed.
It is, of course, possible to enshrine additional kami in a jinja, and even for the emphasis to shift between the kami enshrined somewhere, but that is a different process altogether.
Thank you!
I’m curious, how did this process work for the shrine you mentioned in the article, Izumo Ōyashiro? Especially when it’s such an important shrine, and involving such prominent kami?
It is a while since I read up on this, so I may be misremembering the details, but I think it went like this.
The Kojiki and Nihonshoki are absolutely clear that the main kami is Ōkuninushi. However, at some point over the following 900 years, the main kami became Susano’o. When the priests were removing Buddhist influences from the jinja in the seventeenth century (they were ahead of the curve), they reverted to the kami described in the earliest legends. Because there were a lot of Buddhist things to remove as well, I don’t think there was anything specific for the change in the acknowledgement of the main kami.
Oh interesting, though that begs the question: how did it change to Susano’o?? I suppose the reason for THAT change is a little more vague? It does seem like often these changes are spurred on by some kind of political / theological push of some sort, as in the case of removing Buddhist influences.
In any case, thanks for the info!
To the best of my knowledge, we do not have any information on how the change to Susano’o happened. The survival of records from that period is not great. Susano’o was (and is) a very important kami in the area, however, so it is not totally strange.
It is even possible that the original kami of Izumo Ōyashiro was Susano’o, but that the Yamato state, in the eighth century, insisted that it should be Ōkuninushi — and so that was recorded in the Kojiki, Nihonshoki, and Izumo Fudoki. However, local tradition left Susano’o in place for almost a thousand years, until people had forgotten the original situation and only had the Yamato records to rely on. I have absolutely no evidence for that, nor any reason to believe it, but given the state of our records, it is a possibility.