Shinto

The lead story on the front page of the October 2nd issue of Jinja Shinpō was a report of a visit by the Tennō and Kōgō to Koma Jinja, in Saitama Prefecture, on September 20th. Personal visits to a jinja by the Tennō are always front page news in Jinja Shinpō, because they are not that common. The immediate reason for this visit appears to have been the 1,300th anniversary of the jinja, but while such events are very often marked by an offering sent by the Tennō, it is… Read More »The Tennō at Koma Jinja

OK, so this looks like a fairly fundamental question. I’m in the process of writing an essay on the history of Shinto for my Patreon, and that reminded me of just how difficult this question is. I’m not talking about the question of the “real essence” of Shinto; I’m talking about the much more basic question of whether a particular activity is part of Shinto. For example, is Shugendō Shinto? I think most people these days would say “no”, but it was central to the practices of many jinja, and… Read More »What Is Shinto?

This week’s Jinja Shinpō has an article on the back page reporting the results of a survey carried out by the Iwatë Prefecture Jinjachō. Iwatë Prefecture is in northeast Japan, and it is one of the prefectures that were badly hit by the earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The purpose of the survey was to find out how the depopulation of rural Japan was affecting jinja in that area. The answer appears to be “badly”. In the rural areas of the prefecture, about 80% of jinja have fewer than 500… Read More »The State of Jinja in Iwatë Prefecture

There is an interesting article in this week’s Jinja Shinpō about the dedication of a new building at a jinja in northern Japan. This happens a lot, but the building in question is called the “Thousand Buddhas Hall”, and it has been built to house over two hundred Buddha images. The jinja in question is Dewa Sanzan Jinja, a complex of three jinja on three mountains (which is what “sanzan” means), in the western area of northern Japan (which is what “Dewa”) means. Until the Meiji Revolution, these jinja were… Read More »Buddhas at a Jinja

The book collecting Rei Torii’s art has an official English title: The Shinto Art Work. I was given a copy by one of my students, so I’ve been able to look through it. I still like the art a great deal, and even the “Dances of the Land of Eternal Youth” series, which is in a very different style from the others, has grown on me. There is a significant amount of Japanese commentary, explaining the background to the pictures, and saying something about Mr Torii’s artistic development, but even… Read More »The Shinto Art Work

Kanda Myōjin is an old jinja in Tokyo. It claims to date back to the eighth century, and thus predate the city by about nine centuries. It may well be that old; it is certainly known to have existed before the Tokugawa shoguns moved their capital to Edo and turned it into a city. It claims to be the general tutelary jinja for the city of Tokyo as a whole, with a focus on the people who live there, rather than on the government. That is, it is a popular… Read More »Kanda Myōjin