The slogan in Japan these days is “with corona” (wizu korona), which suggests adapting the way you do things so that you can get on with something as close as possible to normal life before COVID-19 has gone away. Jinja are also doing this, in an attempt to maintain both the traditions and their financial basis. The October 5th issue of Jinja Shinpō included a report from the chief priest of a jinja in Tokyo, Ōtori Jinja (probably — the…
Revd Sano’s article really seems to have started a new trend for articles critical of Jinja Honchō in Jinja Shinpō. The October 5th issue included a short article criticising a different aspect of Jinja Honchō’s activities: its response to the pandemic. To be honest, this criticism is rather more muted, because it opens with an appreciation of the guidelines and pictograms that Jinja Honchō and the prefectural Jinjachō have made available, and goes on to raise two questions rather than…
Jinja Shinpō is continuing to publish articles from individual priests criticising, or at least questioning, Jinja Honchō’s recent actions. At the end of September, they published two more. One, from a chief priest in Okayama Prefecture in western Japan, is focused on the recent problems over the sale of employee accommodation. He gives a summary of what he has picked up about the events, but notes that there has been no substantive statement from Jinja Honchō, and even Jinja Shinpō…
The hatsumōdë jinja visit at the beginning of the new year is a firmly established tradition in contemporary Japan. Anywhere from dozens to millions of people descend on each jinja to pay their respects, receive ofuda to venerate in the new year, and provide the foundation for the jinja’s financial survival over the following year. This presents jinja with a major problem this time. They cannot afford to simply cancel hatsumōdë, in most cases; the income is vital to paying…
A few weeks ago, Jinja Shinpō ran a pair of articles on the Yakumo Koto. This is a particular kind of koto, a stringed instrument with strings stretched over a long (1 metre or more) sounding board. The strings are plucked, and held at various points to make different notes. Koto have been associated with Shinto ritual since the earliest legends: a koto is used in a ritual described in the Nihonshoki. The Yakumo Koto does not go back that…
According to the 28 September issue of Jinja Shinpō, Abë Shinzō, the former prime minister of Japan, visited Yasukuni Jinja on September 19th. This does not seem to have raised the same amount of international controversy as his previous visit, on December 26th 2013, possibly because he was not prime minister this time, having formally resigned on September 16th. It did still make the front page of Jinja Shinpō, however. I am raising it here, because I think this visit…
I have made two more of the back numbers of the Patreon essays available on Amazon: Shinto Practice for Non-Japanese. (Note that the links to Amazon are affiliate links, which means that I may get money if you buy something else after clicking on them, as well as, obviously, getting royalties if you buy my book.) This includes the essay for last month. I’ve made it available this quickly because these essays address questions that get asked a lot: can…
A few weeks ago, I wrote about an article published in Jinja Shinpō that was indirectly critical of the Shinto establishment, and wondered whether there would be any follow-up. There was. A couple of weeks ago, Jinja Shinpō carried two articles that were explicitly responding to that one. One of them was from a retired priest in his eighties, who lives in Yamaguchi Prefecture in western Japan. His main argument was that Shinto priests today weren’t as good as they…
As regular readers of this blog will know, Jinja Shinpō has recently carried a lot of articles about jinja that have adapted their matsuri to COVID-19, with details about how they have done it. A couple of weeks ago, they published one that struck me as a particularly practical and interesting idea. The jinja in question, Nishinë Jinja in Fukushima City, seems to be fairly large (although I had never heard of it before — with 80,000 jinja in Japan,…
A couple of weeks ago there was an interesting little article in Jinja Shinpō about a jinja that has been involved in the creation of a local craft beer. The jinja is Haijima Tenjinja, and it is in Akishima City, which is part of Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture, right on the edge of the urban area in the west. (Tokyo Metropolitan Prefecture has a rural bit in the Tama region, to the northwest of the main urban area. Akishima is pretty…