A gateway of two uprights and two crossbars, often vermilion, marking where the sacred ground begins
The torii
General knowledge · Religion & belief
Shinto
the name is first used in the 6th century CE to distinguish it from Buddhism
The indigenous religion of Japan — the way of the kami
The indigenous religious tradition of Japan, whose name means "the way of the kami". Kami are the sacred presences found in mountains, trees, waterfalls, remarkable people and ancestors — numerous, local and not much like gods in the Western sense. The tradition has no founder and no single scripture; its emphasis falls on purity, gratitude and the festivals of the shrine rather than on doctrine. Most Japanese take part in its rites without describing themselves as believers, and commonly observe Buddhist ones as well.
How to spot them
- ▸Kami — spirits in natural features, ancestors and remarkable things
- ▸The torii gate, marking the boundary of sacred ground
- ▸Shrines are jinja; Buddhist places are temples, and the two are distinguished in questions
- ▸Concerned with purity and pollution rather than with sin
Key facts
A grand shrine at Ise, pulled down and rebuilt on the neighbouring plot every twenty years
Ise Jingu and the Shikinen Sengu; the last rebuilding was in 2013
Thousands of orange gateways forming a tunnel up a Kyoto hillside, sacred to the rice deity and his foxes
Fushimi Inari Taisha; the fox is Inari's messenger
Bow twice, clap twice, bow once
The standard form of shrine worship, after rinsing hands and mouth at the temizuya
Mirror, sword and jewel — the three treasures of the Japanese imperial regalia
Yata no Kagami, Kusanagi and Yasakani no Magatama, traced to the sun goddess Amaterasu
The Kojiki of 712, Japan's oldest surviving book, sets down its creation myths (712)
With the Nihon Shoki of 720; they tell of Izanagi and Izanami and the birth of the islands
On New Year's Day 1946 the Japanese emperor issued a rescript denying that he was divine (1946)
Hirohito's Ningen-sengen, the 'Declaration of Humanity', after the Occupation dissolved the state cult
A gateway standing in the sea off Miyajima, which appears to float at high tide
Itsukushima Shrine, a World Heritage Site in Hiroshima Bay
Key ideas
- There is no concept of sin at the centre of it, but there is one of pollution — kegare — removed by purification, harae. That is why rinsing the hands and mouth comes before prayer, and why salt is thrown in a sumo ring.
Quick-fire facts
- •The name means 'the way of the kami'; it was coined to distinguish native practice from Buddhism, which reached Japan in the 6th century
- •A shrine is a jinja; a Buddhist establishment is a tera or temple
- •The torii gate marks the entrance to sacred ground; worshippers purify hands and mouth at a water basin, the temizuya
- •Standard shrine etiquette is two bows, two claps, one bow
- •Amaterasu, the sun goddess, is the most prominent kami, and the imperial house traditionally claims descent from her
- •The Grand Shrine of Ise is rebuilt every twenty years in the Shikinen Sengu; the 62nd rebuilding took place in 2013
- •Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto is famous for its thousands of donated vermilion torii; Inari is the kami of rice, and foxes are the messengers
- •The mythology is recorded in the Kojiki (712) and the Nihon Shoki (720)
- •The Three Sacred Treasures are the mirror, the sword Kusanagi and the curved jewel
- •State Shinto was established after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and dismantled by the Allied Occupation's Shinto Directive of December 1945; Emperor Hirohito renounced divinity on 1 January 1946
- •Shrine maidens are miko; votive plaques are ema, paper fortunes omikuji and amulets omamori
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