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Jingū

Jingū Shikinen Sengū Preparation Committee

The August 19th issue of Jinja Shinpō led with an article about the first meeting of the Jingū Shikinen Sengū Preparation Committee. The committee is an advisory body for the Senior Chief Priest of Jingū, with the remit to investigate and discuss important issues. It is chaired by the Chairman of Jinja Honchō, Revd Takatsukasa, who is himself a former Senior Chief Priest of Jingū. Revd Tanaka, the President of Jinja Honchō, is also on the committee. The meeting was held on July 31st, in Tokyo, and other members of… Read More »Jingū Shikinen Sengū Preparation Committee

Remote Offerings

The 8th July issue of Jinja Shinpō had an interesting historical article about the ways people made offerings to Jingū in the early sixteenth century. It was written by the head of Nagasaki Prefectural Jinjachō, based on surviving documents from what is now Okayama Prefecture. These record 479 people who visited Jingū with a particular onshi (the priests who gathered adherents for Jingū and organised their visits), and give details of how they made their offerings. It seems that only 82 of them took cash to Isë and made their… Read More »Remote Offerings

Living Things at Jingū

The Jingū column in the July 8th issue of Jinja Shinpō was about living creatures at Jingū. There are about 2,800 kinds of animals, and about 140 birds, including mammals such as boars, raccoon dogs, and rabbits, birds such as kingfishers and owls, and river creatures such as catfish and frogs. There are also lots of insects and other bugs. Do you notice anything missing from this list? That’s right! Trees! The article does go on to discuss the importance of preserving the forest in order to provide the habitat… Read More »Living Things at Jingū

Jingū Taima

Jingū Taima (the ofuda from Jingū at Isë) are largely distributed around New Year, and so this was another topic that came up in the survey. Coincidentally, the matsuri at Jingū to mark the end of this year’s distribution was held on March 5th, and was also reported in the March 18th issue of Jinja Shinpō. This article also includes the reports on numbers distributed. This year, 8,038,452 Jingū Taima were distributed, a fall of 43,714 compared to last year. Although the numbers have fallen for fourteen consecutive years, since… Read More »Jingū Taima

The Shikinen Sengū Begins

The front and back pages of the April 15th issue of Jinja Shinpō were devoted to the news that the process of the 2033 Jingū Shikinen Sengū has formally begun. Jingū, in Isë, Mië Prefecture, central Japan, is a complex of 125 jinja centred on the Kōtai Jingū, which enshrines Amaterasu Ōmikami, and the Toyo’ukë Daijingū, which enshrines Toyo’ukë Ōmikami. The whole complex is rebuilt once every twenty years, and the sacred treasures for the kami are all replaced at the same time. This is the Shikinen Sengū. “Sengū” means… Read More »The Shikinen Sengū Begins

The Shōgun and Amaterasu Ōmikami

A few weeks ago, I received issue 270/271 of the Journal of Shintō Studies, and I want to pick up on some points from the articles in it for this blog. This issue isn’t themed, so there is quite a range across the five articles, and all of them have something that I think might be interesting to my readers. The first thing I want to pick up is from “The Tokugawa Shogunate and Amaterasu Ōmikami: The Period of Shōgun Iemitsu”, by Tanido Yūki. The article is a bit more… Read More »The Shōgun and Amaterasu Ōmikami