Shinto

“Kamikakushi” means “hidden by the kami”, and could be translated “Spirited Away”. Indeed, the Japanese title of the Miyazaki anime called “Spirited Away” in English is “Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi”: “Sen and Chihiro’s Kamikakushi”. Historically, it was thought that people who entered particular sacred areas, such as forests or mountains, might be taken away by the kami. Very occasionally, they might reappear years later. The oldest legend clearly referring to this idea is that of Urashima Tarō, a story that is known to have existed since the eighth century… Read More »Kamikakushi & Kamikakurë

Okinagatarashihimë is one of the most widely revered kami in Japan, but very few people even within the country have so much as heard her name. She is one of the three Hachiman kami, and one of the two (with Hondawakë) who are enshrined in almost all Hachiman jinja — the remaining kami is very variable. Okinagatarashihimë is also known as Jingū Kōgō, and Japanese legend, particularly in the Nihonshoki, records her as the wife of one Tennō and the mother of another, and as the main character in the… Read More »Okinagatarashihimë

A couple of days ago, I was having a conversation with a professor of Shinto Studies at Kokugakuin University, and the subject of female priests came up. His speciality is the period 1868 to 1945 (a clearly distinct period of Japanese history), and what he had to say was interesting. Apparently, in the late nineteenth century, there were female priests at some jinja. This happened because, with the separation of Shinto and Buddhism, many Buddhist clergy who had managed jinja through their temples reverted to being lay people, and became… Read More »Female Shinto Priests

Haraë is a central concept and ritual in Shinto. It is normally translated as “purification”, and this is not a bad translation; haraë is how one gets rid of kegarë, or impurity. Haraë is very closely linked to misogi, which is also a way to get rid of kegarë. Indeed, in contemporary Shinto it is not clear that they are really different, and it is not uncommon to see references to “misogiharaë” or “haraëmisogi”. The main difference is that misogi involves water, and haraë does not. I have written a… Read More »The Practice of Haraë

In the last few days, I’ve come across a couple of jinja running events at which women can experience being miko. In both places, the stated intent is to counteract the image of miko that comes from manga and anime by providing an opportunity to see what it is really like. One of them is Amagasaki Ebisu Jinja, in Amagasaki City, which is just to the west of Osaka. Their miko experience is one hour, and while the website, which has English and Chinese as well as Japanese, does not… Read More »The Miko Experience

The fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 11 turned our thoughts to the moon and thus, in the context of Shinto, to Tsukuyomi (or Tsukiyomi) no Mikoto, a brother of Amaterasu Ōmikami and generally accepted to be the kami of the moon. In the Kojiki myth of the birth of Amaterasu Ōmikami, she is born when Izanaki washes his left eye, and Tsukuyomi is born when he washes his right eye. (Susano’o is born when he cleans out his nose.) Amaterasu Ōmikami is clearly a kami of the sun in some sense;… Read More »Tsukuyomi, the Kami of the Moon