David Chart

How many Inari jinja are there in Japan? Tl;dr: 3,000 and 30,000 and 300,000 are all possible answers, depending on what you count as an “Inari jinja”. It is very common to see the claim that there are more Inari jinja than any other single kind, both in English and in Japanese, and there are various specific claims about the number. For example, Fushimi Inari Taisha, the original Inari jinja in Kyoto, says on their website that “There are said to be about 30,000”. You might think that they would… Read More »How Many Inari Jinja?

Asakusa Jinja has special goshuin for its natsumoude, shown in the photographs. The blue one is the natsumoude goshuin, so you can get it with any date from the 1st to the 7th; the date is always the date on which you visited the jinja. You could get seven, one for every day, and I suspect that some people did. The rabbit and frog are based on the Chōjūgiga, which always sounds like a data communication standard to me, but is actually a set of scrolls, dating from the twelfth… Read More »Asakusa Goshuin

The Sendaikujihongi is an ancient collection of Shinto myths, and most people have never heard of it. This is even true in Japan. This is because, for about a thousand years, people believed that it had been written by Shōtoku Taishi in the early seventh century, until an astute scholar in the Edo period pointed out that it referred to events in the ninth century. After that, it was regarded as a forgery, and largely ignored. As a result, it has been much less available — it was published, in… Read More »The Sendaikujihongi

The back page of the June 28th issue of Jinja Shinpō was a full-colour special celebrating the completion of the refurbishment of the Masakado Tsuka in Ōtëmachi, central Tokyo. Taira no Masakado was a leader and general of the early tenth century who rebelled against the central government and proclaimed himself the “New Tennō”. His rebellion was put down, and Masakado himself was beheaded, and the head taken to Kyoto to be displayed in public. After three days, however, it flew, shining with white light, back to eastern Japan, and… Read More »Masakado Tsuka

Earlier this week, I volunteered to help out at Asakusa Jinja’s natsumoude. Normally, I would write that “natsumōdë”, but Asakusa Jinja has an official romanisation for the word, so I am using that. This is, as you might guess, related to hatsumōdë. Hatsumōdë is the custom of visiting a jinja or temple in the first few days of a new year, to pray for good fortune. Natsumoude is the “new custom”, as Asakusa Jinja puts it, of visiting a jinja or temple in the first few days of July. The… Read More »Natsumoude

A number of jinja in Ibaraki Prefecture, just to the northeast of Tokyo, have got together to offer “kami tama”, or “kami beads”, to people who visit the jinja, and the June 21st issue of Jinja Shinpō had a short article about them. These kami tama are wooden beads about 1.5 cm in diameter, with a hole through them for threading onto a string, and an image on the side that is related to their jinja. They can be obtained at each jinja, presumably in exchange for a small offering,… Read More »Kami Tama