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David Chart

Shugendō and Shinto

I have recently read A Path into the Mountains, by Caleb Swift Carter. (Affiliate link!) The book is about historical practice at Togakushi Jinja (戸隠神社), and I have to confess that I had a serious problem with the methodology. Essentially, Carter’s position is that if a tradition doesn’t, institutionally, look like Tendai Buddhism, with a coherent set of deities, doctrines, and lineages, then it probably doesn’t exist, and certainly isn’t important. This results in the claim that Shinto only became involved at Togakushi in the mid Edo-period, because there is… Read More »Shugendō and Shinto

A Sword Discovered

The February 9th issue of Jinja Shinpō included an article about a sword. About five years ago, Kumata Jinja (杭全神社) in Osaka was sorting out a store room for the jinja’s treasures, and they found a box with eight swords bundled inside. It seems that there were no helpful records at the jinja, because they called in an expert. He looked at them, and said that it was very likely that one of them was the work of Gojō Kuninaga, a swordsmith active in the mid-eleventh century. The swords had… Read More »A Sword Discovered

Spirits of the Dead

Issue 277 of Shintō Shūkyō included thirty short reports on research presentations made at the conference. I am not going to write about all of them here, but there are four that I want to pick up and introduce. The first is “The Characteristics of the Dead in Ancient Times”, by Kobayashi Norihiko. That is the official English title, but the Japanese title is explicit that the report is about the spirits of the dead. Dr Kobayashi argues that in ancient times, which means the eighth and ninth centuries AD… Read More »Spirits of the Dead

Fire Prevention

I have occasionally threatened to write a book entitled And Then It Burnt Down: An Architectural History of Japan, because fires are such a recurrent part of Japanese architectural history. Indeed, in the Edo period the saying was that the Edo (modern Tokyo) had two sorts of flowers: fights and fires. (The original Japanese doesn’t alliterate as nicely as the English translation.) Concerns with fire prevention are still very strong in Japan, and the front page of the February 2nd issue of Jinja Shinpō was all about one of these… Read More »Fire Prevention

Digital Administration

The January 26th issue of Jinja Shinpō included an article that was entirely about practical issues involved in running a prefectural Jinjachō. It was written by one of the staff at Okayama Jinjachō, and if I am remembering correctly it was the latest in a series reporting on their move to a fully digital system. This article reported on the successful shift to completely digital communication between the Jinjachō and the local groups within it. It seems that quite a lot of administration happens this way: individual jinja communicate with… Read More »Digital Administration

Shinto and Buddhism

There is a long history of extremely close links between Shinto and Buddhist practice, but most of these links were severed by the government in 1868. Recently, however, some priests and monks have started to restore them. Despite the emphasis that Shinto places on tradition, this is not a simple revival of the way things were in the past. The January 26th issue of Jinja Shinpō had a couple of articles about examples. One was at Enoshima Jinja (江島神社), in Kanagawa Prefecture, and marked the seventh centenary of a local… Read More »Shinto and Buddhism