David Chart

While I was volunteering at Asakusa Jinja’s natsumoude, on July 7th, the jinja held a special ceremony, or “shinji”, to symbolically clean and purify the well in the jinja precincts. This was called the “Ido Arai Shinji”, or “Well-Washing Ceremony”. This was listed in the program for natsumoude, which we were handing out, and was announced several times over the PA system in the jinja, but even so not many people went to see it. (It was at 2pm on a weekday, but there were quite a lot of people… Read More »Well-Washing Ceremony

“O-Sanpo Mairi” means “visiting a jinja while taking a casual stroll”. An “o-sanpo” is a walk with no particular purpose, and so the whole phrase suggests visiting a jinja without any strong purpose, just as something pleasant to do. As this is basically what I do every day, I am in favour of the concept. “O-Sanpo Mairi” is also the title of a campaign organised by one jinja in Tokyo, Irugi Jinja in Shinagawa. The jinja emphasises that going for a walk is a safe way to get out and… Read More »O-Sanpo Mairi

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