Shinto shrine

A Shinto shrine is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more Shinto kami, and is usually characterized by the presence of a honden (also called shinden (神殿) ) or sanctuary, where the kami are enshrined. The honden may however be completely absent, as for example when the shrine stands on a sacred mountain to which it is dedicated, or when there are nearby himorogi or other yorishiro that can serve as a more direct bond to a kami. There may be a haiden (拝殿, hall of worship), and other structures (see below).

Miniature shrines called hokora can occasionally be found at the side of streets. Large shrines themselves sometimes have on their precincts miniature shrines called sessha (摂社) or massha (末社). The portable shrines carried by faithful on poles during festivals (matsuri) and called mikoshi actually enshrine a kami, and are therefore true shrines.

The number of Shinto shrines in Japan is estimated to be around 100,000.

Birth and evolution of Shinto shrines

Mount Nantai, worshiped at Futarasan Shrine, has the shape of the phallic stone rods found in pre-agricultural Jōmon sites.

In the Yayoi period the Japanese did not have the notion of anthropomorphic deities, and felt the presence of spirits in nature and its phenomena. Mountains, forests, rain, wind, lightning and sometimes animals were thought to be charged with spiritual power, a power whose material manifestations were worshipped as kami, entities closer in their essence to Polynesian mana than to a Western God. Yayoi-period village councils sought the advice of kami and developed instruments to evoke them called yorishiro (依り代), a word that literally means approach substitute. Yorishiro were conceived to attract the kami and give them a physical space to occupy, thus making them accessible to human beings.

Village council sessions were held in a quiet spot in the mountains or in a forest near a great tree or other natural object that served as a yorishiro. These sacred places and their yorishiro gradually evolved into today's shrines, whose origins can be still seen in the Japanese words for "mountain" and "forest", which can also mean "shrine". Many shrines have on their grounds one of the original great yorishiro: a big tree, surrounded by a sacred rope called shimenawa (標縄・注連縄・七五三縄).

The very first buildings at places dedicated to worship were surely huts built to house some yorishiro. A trace of this origin can be found in the term hokura (神庫), literally meaning "deity storehouse", which evolved into hokora (written with the same characters 神庫), and is considered to be one of the first words for shrine.

Real shrines were born with the beginning of agriculture, when for the first time the need arose to draw a kami to a particular place to ensure good harvests. These were however just temporary structures built for a particular purpose, a tradition of which we find traces in some rituals still performed today.　

Hints of what the first shrines must have been like can still be found here and there. Ōmiwa Shrine in Nara, for example, contains no sacred images or objects because it is believed to serve the mountain on which it stands. Those images or objects are therefore not necessary. For the same reason, it has a worship hall (a haiden (拝殿)), but no place to house the kami (shinden (神殿)). Archeology confirms that indeed during the Yayoi period the most common shintai (神体) (a yorishiro actually housing the enshrined kami) in the earliest shrines was a nearby mountain peak supplying with its streams water, and therefore life, to the plains below where people lived. Besides the already mentioned Ōmiwa Shrine, another important example is Mount Nantai, a phallus-shaped mountain in Nikko which constitutes Futarasan Shrine's shintai. Significantly, the name Nantai (男体) itself means "man's body". The mountain not only provides water to the rice paddies below, but has the shape of the phallic stone rods found in pre-agricultural Jōmon sites.

The arrival of Buddhism changed the situation, introducing to Japan the concept of a permanent shrine. Some time in their evolution, the word Miya (宮) meaning "palace" came into use, indicating that shrines had by then become the imposing structures of today.

Once the first permanent shrines were built, Shinto revealed a strong tendency to resist architectural change, a tendency which manifested itself in the so-called Shikinen sengū-sai (式年遷宮祭), the tradition of rebuilding shrines faithfully at regular intervals adhering strictly to their original design. This custom is the reason ancient styles have been replicated through the centuries to the present day, remaining more or less intact. Ise Shrine, still rebuilt every 20 years, is its best extant example. The tradition of rebuilding shrines or temples is present in other religions, but in Shinto it has played a particularly significant role in preserving ancient architectural styles. Izumo Taisha, Sumiyoshi Taisha and Nishina Shinmei Shrine in fact represent each a different style whose origin is believed to predate Buddhism in Japan, a religion which arrived in Japan around the beginning of the eighth century.These three styles are known respectively as taisha-zukuri, sumiyoshi-zukuri and shinmei-zukuri (see description below).

Shrines weren't of course completely immune to change, and in fact show various influences, particularly that of Buddhism, a cultural import which provided much of Shinto architecture's vocabulary. The rōmon (楼門, tower gate), the haiden, the kairō (回廊, corridor), the tōrō, or stone lantern, and the komainu, or lion dogs, (see below for an explanation of these terms) are all elements borrowed from Buddhism.

Structure of a Shinto shrine

The composition of a Shinto shrine

The following is a diagram illustrating the most important parts of a Shinto shrine.

1. Torii - Shinto gate
2. Stone stairs
3. Sandō - the approach to the shrine
4. Chōzuya or temizuya - fountain to cleanse one's hands and face
5. Tōrō - decorative stone lanterns
6. Kagura-den - building dedicated to Noh or the sacred kagura dance
7. Shamusho - the shrine's administrative office
8. Ema - wooden plaques bearing prayers or wishes
9. Sessha/massha - small auxiliary shrines
10. Komainu - the so-called "lion dogs", guardians of the shrine
11. Haiden - oratory
12. Tamagaki - fence surrounding the honden
13. Honden - main hall, enshrining the kami
14. On the roof of the haiden and honden are visible chigi (forked roof finials) and katsuogi (short horizontal logs), both common shrine ornamentations.

The general blueprint of a Shinto shrine is Buddhist in origin. The presence of verandas, stone lanterns, and elaborate gates is an example of this influence. The composition of a Shinto shrine is extremely variable, and none of its possible features is necessarily present. As we have seen, even the honden can be missing.

However, since its grounds are sacred, they usually are surrounded by a fence made of stone or wood called tamagaki, while access is made possible by an approach called sandō. The entrances themselves are straddled by gates called torii, which are therefore the simplest way to identify a Shinto shrine.

A shrine may include within its grounds several structures, each destined to a different purpose. Among them are the already mentioned honden or sanctuary, where the kami are enshrined, the heiden or hall of offerings, where offers and prayers are presented, and the haiden or hall of worship, where there may be seats for worshipers. The honden is the building that contains the shintai, literally, "the sacred body of the kami".. Of these, only the haiden is open to the laity. The honden is usually located behind the haiden and is often much smaller and unadorned. Other notable shrine features are the torii, gates that delimit the shrine's sacred grounds, the temizuya, the fountain where visitors cleanse their hands and mouth, and the shamusho (社務所), the office which oversees the shrine. Buildings are often adorned by chigi and katsuogi, variously oriented poles which protrude from their roof (see illustration above).

Before the Meiji Restoration it was common for a Buddhist temple to be built inside or next to a shrine, or viceversa for a shrine to include Buddhist subtemples. If a shrine housed a Buddhist temple, it was called a {jinguji (神宮寺). Analogously, temples all over Japan adopted tutelary kami (chinju (鎮守/鎮主) and built temple shrines to house them. After the forcible separation of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines (shinbutsu bunri) ordered by the new government in the Meiji period, the connection between the two religions was officially severed, but continued nonetheless in practice and is still visible today.

Shrine architectures styles

Main article: Shinto architecture

Shrines buildings can have many different basic layouts, usually named either after a famous shrine's honden (e.g. hiyoshi-zukuri, named after Hiyoshi Taisha), or a structural characteristic (e.g. irimoya-zukuri, after the hip-and gable roof it adopts. The suffix -zukuri in this case means "structure".)

The honden's roof is always gabled, and some styles also have a veranda-like aisle called hisashi (a 1-ken wide corridor surrounding one or more sides of the core of a shrine or temple). Among the factors involved in the classification, important are the presence or absence of:

• hirairi or hirairi-zukuri (平入・平入造) - a style of construction in which the building has its main entrance on the side which runs parallel to the roof's ridge (non gabled-side). The shinmei-zukuri, nagare-zukuri, hachiman-zukuri, and hie-zukuri belong to this type.

• tsumairi or tsumairi-zukuri (妻入・妻入造) - a style of construction in which the building has its main entrance on the side which runs perpendicular to the roof's ridge (gabled side). The taisha-zukuri, sumiyoshi-zukuri, ōtori-zukuri and kasuga-zukuri belong to this type.

(The gallery at the end of this article contains examples of both styles.)

Proportions are also important. A building of a given style often must have certain proportions measured in ken (the distance between pillars, a quantity variable from one shrine to another or even within the same shrine).

The oldest styles are the tsumairi shinmei-zukuri, taisha-zukuri, and sumiyoshi-zukuri, believed to predate the arrival of Buddhism.

The two most common are the hirairi nagare-zukuri and the tsumairi kasuga-zukuri. Larger, more important shrines tend to have unique styles.

Most common styles

The following are the two most common shrine styles in Japan.

Nagare-zukuri

Ujigami Shrine in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture

The nagare-zukuri (流造, flowing style) or nagare hafu-zukuri (流破風造, flowing gabled style) is a style characterized by a very asymmetrical gabled roof (kirizuma-yane (切妻屋根) in Japanese) projecting outwards on the non-gabled side, above the main entrance, to form a portico (see photo). This is the feature which gives the style its name, the most common among shrines all over the country. Sometimes the basic layout consisting of an elevated core (母屋, moya) partially surrounded by a veranda called hisashi (all under the same roof) is modified by the addition of a room in front of the entrance. The honden varies in roof ridge length from 1 to 11 ken, but is never 6 or 8 ken. The most common sizes are 1 and 3 ken. The oldest shrine in Japan, Uji's Ujigami Shrine, has a honden of this type. Its external dimensions are 5x3 ken, but internally it is composed of three sanctuaries (内殿, naiden) measuring 1 ken each.

Kasuga-zukuri

The honden at Uda Mikumari Shrine Kami-gū is made of 3 joined Kasuga-zukuri buildings

Kasuga-zukuri (春日造) as a style takes its name from Kasuga Taisha's honden. It is characterized by the extreme smallness of the building, just 1x1 ken in size. In Kasuga Taisha's case, this translates in 1.9 m x 2.6 m. The roof is gabled with a single entrance at the gabled end, decorated with chigi and katsuogi, covered with cypress bark and curved upwards at the eaves. Supporting structures are painted vermillion, while the plank walls are white.

After the Nagare-zukuri (see below), this is the most common style, with most instances in the Kansai region around Nara.

Styles predating the arrival of Buddhism

The following four styles predate the arrival in Japan of Buddhism.

Primitive shrine layout with no honden

This style is rare, but historically important. It is also unique in that the honden, normally the very center of a shrine, is missing. It is believed shrines of this type are reminiscent of what shrines were like in prehistorical times. The first shrines had no honden because the shintai, or object of worship, was the mountain on which they stood. An extant example is Nara's Ōmiwa Shrine, which still has no honden. An area near the haiden (hall of worship), sacred and taboo, replaces it for worship. Another prominent example of this style is Futarasan Shrine near Nikkō, whose shintai is Mount Nantai. For details, see Birth and evolution of Shinto shrines above.

Shinmei-zukuri

A shrine at Ise

Shinmei-zukuri (神明造) is an ancient style typical of, and most common at, Ise Grand Shrine, the holiest of Shinto shrines. It is most common in Mie prefecture. Characterized by an extreme simplicity, its basic features can be seen in Japanese architecture from the Kofun period (250–538 C.E.) onwards and it is considered the pinnacle of Japanese traditional architecture. Built in planed, unfinished wood, the honden is either 3x2 ken or 1x1ken in size, has a raised floor, a gabled roof with an entry on one the non-gabled sides, no upward curve at the eaves, and decorative logs called chigi and katsuogi protruding from the roof's ridge. The oldest extant example is Nishina Shinmei Shrine.

Sumiyoshi-zukuri

Sumiyoshi Taisha's Funatama Jinja

Sumiyoshi-zukuri (住吉造) takes its name from Sumiyoshi Taisha's honden in Ōsaka. The building is 4 ken wide and 2 ken deep, and has an entrance under the gable. Its interior is divided in two sections, one at the front (gejin (外陣)) and one at the back (naijin (内陣)) with a single entrance at the front. Construction is simple, but the pillars are painted in vermilion and the walls in white.

The style is supposed to have its origin in old palace architecture Another example of this style is Sumiyoshi Jinja, part of the Sumiyoshi Sanjin complex in Fukuoka Prefecture. In both cases, as in many others, there is no veranda.

Taisha-zukuri

Kamosu Jinja's honden

Taisha-zukuri or Ōyashiro-zukuri (大社造) is the oldest shrine style, takes its name from Izumo Taisha and, like Ise Grand Shrine's, has chigi and katsuogi, plus archaic features like gable-end pillars and a single central pillar (shin no mihashira). Because its floor is raised on stilts, it is believed to have its origin in raised-floor granaries similar to those found in Toro, Shizuoka prefecture.

The honden normally has a 2x2 ken footprint (12.46x12.46 m in Izumo Taisha's case), with an entrance on the gabled end. The stairs to the honden are covered by a cypress bark roof. The oldest extant example of the style is Kamosu Jinja's honden in Shimane prefecture, built in the 16th century.

Other styles

Many other architectural styles exist, most of them rare. For details, see Shinto architecture - Other styles

Interpreting shrine names

The term "Shinto shrine" is used in opposition to "Buddhist temple" to mirror in English the distinction made in Japanese between Shinto and Buddhist religious structures. This single English word however translates several non equivalent Japanese words, including jinja (神社) as in Yasukuni Jinja, yashiro (社) as in Tsubaki Ōkami Yashiro, miya (宮) as in Watarai no Miya, -gū (宮) as in Iwashimizu Hachiman-gū, jingū (神宮) as in Meiji Jingū, taisha (大社) as in Izumo Taisha, mori (杜), and hokora/hokura (神庫).

Shrine names are descriptive, and a difficult problem in dealing with them is understanding exactly what they mean. Although there is a lot of variation in their composition, it is usually possible to identify in them two parts. The first is the shrine's name proper, or meishō (名称), the second is the so-called shōgō (称号), or "title".

The meishō

The most common meishō is the location where the shrine stands, as for example in the case of Ise Jingū, the most sacred of shrines, which is located in the city of Ise, Mie prefecture.

Very often the meishō will be the name of the kami enshrined. An Inari Shrine for example is a shrine dedicated to kami Inari. Analogously, a Kumano Shrine is a shrine that enshrines the three Kumano mountains. A Hachiman Shrine enshrines kami Hachiman. Tokyo's Meiji Shrine enshrines the Meiji Emperor. The name can also have other origins, often unknown or unclear.

The shōgō

The second part of the name defines the status of the shrine.

• Jinja (神社) is the most general name for shrine. Any place that owns a honden (本殿) is a jinja. These two characters used to be read either "kamu-tsu-yashiro" or "mori", both meaning "kami grove". Both readings can be found for example in the Man'yōshū.
• Yashiro (社) is a generic term for shinto shrine like jinja.
• A mori (杜) is a place where a kami is present. It can therefore be a shrine and, in fact, the characters 神社, 社 and 杜 can all be read "mori" ("grove"). This reading reflects the fact the first shrines were simply sacred groves or forests where kami were present.
• The suffix -sha or -ja (社), as in Shinmeisha or Tenjinja, indicates a minor shrine that has received through the kanjō process a kami from a more important one.
• Hokora/hokura (神庫) is an extremely small shrine of the kind one finds for example along country roads.
• Jingū (神宮) is a shrine of particularly high status that has a deep relationship with the Imperial household or enshrines an Emperor, as for example in the case of the Ise Jingū and the Meiji Jingū. The name Jingū alone, however, can refer only to the Ise Jingū, whose official name is just "Jingū".
• Miya (宮) indicates a shrine enshrining a special kami or a member of the Imperial household like the Empress, but there are many examples in which it's used simply as a tradition.
• -gū (宮) indicates a shrine enshrining an imperial prince, but there are many examples in which it's used simply as a tradition.
• A taisha (大社)（the characters are also read ōyashiro) is literally a "great shrine" that was classified as such under the ancient system of shrine ranking, the shakaku (社格), abolished in 1946. Many shrines carrying that shōgō adopted it only after the war.
• During the Japanese Middle Ages, shrines started being called with the name gongen, a term of Buddhist origin. For example, in Eastern Japan there are still many Hakusan shrines where the shrine itself is called gongen. Because it represents the application of Buddhist terminology to Shinto kami, its use was legally abolished by the Meiji government with the Shinto and Buddhism Separation Order (神仏判然令, Shin-butsu Hanzenrei), and shrines began to be called jinja.

The Kannushi

Main article: Kannushi

A kannushi

The Kannushi (神主) or shinshoku (神職) is a priest responsible for the shrine's maintenance and for officiating ceremonies. He generally does not proselytize.

Originally the kannushi was an intermediary between kami and could transmit his will to common humans. A kannushi was a man capable of miracles or a holy man who, because of the practice of purificatory rites, was capable to work as a medium for a kami, but later the term evolved to being synonymous with shinshoku, that is, a man who works at a shrine and holds religious ceremonies there.

Traditionally, most shrines did not have a kannushi and were maintained by a committee of parishioners called Ujiko (氏子). In a jinguji, a Buddhist monk had of course to maintain both his shrine and his temple.

Popular kami

A kami worshiped at a shrine is generally a Shinto kami, but sometimes Buddhist or Taoist deities can be worshiped, as well as other kami not generally considered to belong to Shinto. Some shrines are established to worship living people or figures from myths and legends. A famous example are the numerous Tōshō-gū erected to enshrine Tokugawa Ieyasu, or the many shrines dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane like Kitano Tenman-gū.

In recent centuries, especially significant kami have come to be enshrined throughout Japan. Some kami and shrines that have widespread geographic distribution are:

• Asama Shrine (also called Sengen Shrine)
• Aso - See also Aso Shrine
• Ebisu
• Hachiman - See also Hachiman Shrine
• Hikawa Shrine
• Inari - See also Inari Shrine
• Kumano Shrine
• Munakata Shrine
• Shinmei Shrine
• Suwa Shrine
• Tenjin - See also Tenman-gū

Shrines with structures designated as National Treasures

Main article: List of National Treasures of Japan (shrines)

Shrines that are part of a World Heritage Site are set in bold.

• Tōhoku region
  • Ōsaki Hachiman Shrine (Sendai, Miyagi)
• Kantō region
  • Nikkō Tōshō-gū (Nikkō, Tochigi)
  • Rinnō-ji (Nikkō, Tochigi)
• Chūbu region
  • Nishina Shinmei Shrine (Ōmachi, Nagano)
• Kansai region
  • Onjō-ji (Ōtsu, Shiga)
  • Hiyoshi Taisha (Ōtsu, Shiga)
  • Mikami Shrine (Yasu, Shiga)
  • Ōsasahara Shrine (Yasu, Shiga)
  • Tsukubusuma Shrine (Nagahama, Shiga)
  • Namura Shrine (Ryūō, Shiga)
  • Kamo Shrine (Kyoto, Kyoto)
  • Daigo-ji (Kyoto, Kyoto)
  • Toyokuni Shrine (Kyoto, Kyoto)
  • Kitano Tenman-gū (Kyoto, Kyoto)
  • Ujigami Shrine (Uji, Kyoto)
  • Sumiyoshi Taisha (Osaka, Osaka)
  • Sakurai Shrine (Sakai, Osaka)
  • Kasuga Shrine (Nara, Nara)
  • Enjō-ji (Nara, Nara)
  • Isonokami Shrine (Tenri, Nara)
  • Udamikumari Shrine (Uda, Nara)
• Chūgoku region
  • Sanbutsu-ji (Misasa, Tottori)
  • Izumo Taisha (Taisha, Shimane)
  • Kamosu Shrine (Matsue, Shimane)
  • Kibitsu Shrine (Okayama, Okayama)
  • Itsukushima Shrine (Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima)
  • Sumiyoshi Shrine (Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi)
• Shikoku region
  • Kandani Shrine (Sakaide, Kagawa)
• Kyūshū region
  • Usa Shrine (Usa, Ōita)
  • Aoi Aso Shrine (Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto)

Gallery

• 
  Hirairi style: entrance on the non-gabled side
• 
  Tsumairi style: entrance on the gabled side
• 
  Some setsumassha
• 
  A hokora
• 
  Shinmei-zukuri
• 
  Sumiyoshi-zukuri
• 
  Taisha-zukuri, Izumo Taisha

See also

• The Glossary of Shinto for an explanation of terms concerning Japanese Shinto, Shinto art, and Shinto shrine architecture.
• List of Shinto shrines
• List of National Treasures of Japan (shrines)
• Nijūnisha (Twenty-two shrines), a group of the most important shrines
• Senjafuda
• Himorogi

Bibliography

• John Breen, Mark Teuween (editors) (2000). Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0824823634. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Brown, Delmer M. The Early Evolution of Historical Consciousness in "Cambridge History of Japan", Vol. 1. Cambridge, New York & Victoria: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521223522. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Fujita Masaya, Koga Shūsaku, ed. (April 10, 1990). Nihon Kenchiku-shi (in Japanese) (September 30, 2008 ed.). Shōwa-dō. ISBN 4-8122-9805-9.
• Mori, Mizue (2005-06-02). "Honden". Encyclopedia of Shinto. Kokugakuin University. Retrieved 2008-12-19.
• Tamura, Yoshiro (2000). "The Birth of the Japanese nation in". Japanese Buddhism - A Cultural History (First Edition ed.). Tokyo: Kosei Publishing Company. p. 232 pages. ISBN 4-333-01684-3. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Smyers, Karen Ann. The Fox and the Jewel: Shared and Private Meanings in Contemporary Japanese Inari Worship. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8248-2102-5
• The History of Shrines, Encyclopedia of Shinto, retrieved on June 10, 2008
• Shinto Shrines or Temples? retrieved on June 10, 2008
• Shrine Architecture Encyclopedia of Shinto, retrieved on June 10, 2008
• Overview of a Shinto Shrine, a detailed visual introduction to the structure of a Shinto shrine, Encyclopedia of Shinto retrieved on June 8, 2008
• Jinja no Shōgō ni Tsuite Oshiete Kudasai, Shinto Online Network Association, retrieved on July 2, 2008 (in Japanese)

Further reading

• Cluzel, Jean-Sébastien (2008). Architecture éternelle du Japon - De l'histoire aux mythes. Dijon: Editions Faton. ISBN 978-2-87844-107-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

External links

• Jinja and Shinto, Shinto Online Network Association
• Shinto Rites & Procedures - How to perform Shinto rites.
• Template:Ja icon Kokugakuin University Shinto Jinja Database
• Chokusaisha entry, Encyclopedia of Shinto
• Shinto Shrine types 　
• Jinja Honchō, the Association of Shinto Shrines
• The Herbert Offen Research Collection of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum