49 Fun Facts About Shinto

At Shinto festivals, what is the mikoshi that crowds carry shoulder-high through the streets?

A portable shrine. On festival day the kami rides in it out of the main shrine and around the neighbourhood it protects, carried on the shoulders of local people.

The term Shinto is usually translated into English as what?

The way of the kami. Unlike most major religions, Shinto has no founder and no official scripture to set beside the Bible or the Buddhist sutras.

A traditional Japanese saying puts the number of kami at what figure?

Eight million. The figure is not a head count: in old Japanese it was a way of saying beyond number, since kami are held to dwell in every mountain, river and tree.

Roughly how many public Shinto shrines are there in Japan?

About 100,000. Some 80,000 of them belong to the Association of Shinto Shrines, which shrines set up in 1946 after the state cut its ties with Shinto and stopped funding them.

Kami worship has been traced back to which prehistoric era, when wet-rice farming took hold in Japan?

Yayoi. Its farming villages left the first traces of kami rites, with bronze bells among the ritual objects, while the far older Jōmon culture is thought to have no direct link to Shinto.

Which Japanese sport began as a ritual performed for the kami at shrines?

Sumo. Traces of the rite survive in the ring: before each bout the wrestlers still scatter handfuls of salt to purify it.

Why did Japan's court commission the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki in the early 8th century?

To legitimise imperial rule. Both chronicles trace the emperors' descent from the sun kami Amaterasu, weaving rival clans' myths into a single story with the court at its centre.

Hieda no Are, the court attendant behind the Kojiki, was famed for what?

A prodigious memory. Emperor Tenmu had the attendant learn the court's genealogies and old traditions by heart, but the book itself was not written until a generation later, in 712.

The Nihon Shoki, a court chronicle completed in 720, was written in which language?

Chinese. The court wanted an official history to set beside the annals of the Chinese dynasties, so it wrote one in the classical language those annals used.

In Japan's creation myth, Izanagi and Izanami formed the first island by stirring the sea with what?

Spear. Brine dripping from the tip of the jewelled spear hardened into the first island, and the pair came down to it and began giving birth to the rest of Japan.

What is the name of the realm of the dead to which Izanagi descended to retrieve his wife?

Yomi. When Izanagi lit a fire he saw that his wife's body was rotting, fled in horror with her in pursuit, and sealed the entrance behind him with a great rock.

According to the Kojiki, from which part of Izanagi's body was the sun kami Amaterasu born?

His left eye. Izanagi was washing himself clean in the sea after fleeing the land of the dead; the moon kami sprang from his right eye and the storm kami Susanoo from his nose.

Why did Amaterasu hide in a cave, plunging the earth into darkness?

Because her brother Susanoo ran wild. He broke down the divisions between her fields and, in the best-known telling, flung a flayed horse into her weaving hall, so she shut herself in.

In the myth, what made Amaterasu peek out of her cave?

Laughter. The goddess Ame-no-Uzume danced on an upturned tub until the other kami roared, and her performance is said to be the origin of the kagura danced at shrines.

What does the Japanese word kamikaze literally mean?

Divine wind. The name is said to go back to typhoons that wrecked Kublai Khan's invasion fleets in the 13th century, and its 'kami' is the same word Shinto uses for its gods.

Susanoo found the sword Kusanagi inside the tail of which creature after slaying it in Izumo?

The eight-headed serpent Orochi. Susanoo set out a vat of strong sake for each head, waited until the monster had drunk itself to sleep, and then hacked it to pieces.

What does a torii gate symbolically mark?

The transition from the mundane to the sacred. Many visitors pause and bow before stepping through, and walking under the gate is itself seen as a small act of purification.

Who paid for the thousands of vermilion torii lining the paths of Kyoto's Fushimi Inari shrine?

Companies and private donors. Each gate is a thank-you for good fortune or a hope for more, with the giver's name and the date painted on the back.

Which animal serves as the messenger of the kami Inari?

The fox. Pairs of stone foxes stand guard at Inari shrines in place of the usual lion-dogs, often with a key or a jewel held in their mouths.

The name of the kami Inari is usually explained as meaning what?

Rice-bearer. The kami of the harvest came to stand for good fortune of every kind, and is now among the most widely enshrined in Japan.

The Ise Grand Shrine, dedicated to Amaterasu, purportedly houses which of the imperial regalia?

The Yata no Kagami mirror. It is treated as the symbol of Amaterasu herself, and legend says an emperor's daughter wandered for years before choosing Ise as its permanent home.

The Ise Grand Shrine is dismantled and rebuilt on an adjacent site how often?

Every 20 years. The cycle has run almost unbroken since the 7th century, and it is short enough for each generation of carpenters to teach the next how the shrine is built.

Itsukushima Shrine, famous for its "floating" torii, stands on an island in which prefecture?

Hiroshima. The shrine stands on pillars over a tidal inlet, so at high tide it seems to float on the sea, while at low tide visitors can walk out across the sand to the great gate.

Izumo-taisha is dedicated to Ōkuninushi, the kami of what?

Marriage. In the tenth lunar month all the kami of Japan are said to gather at his shrine, and the month's old name is popularly read as 'the month without gods' everywhere but Izumo.

Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, dedicated in 1920, enshrines the spirits of Emperor Meiji and whom?

His wife, Empress Shōken. The deep forest around the shrine is man-made: its trees were donated from every part of Japan and planted when the shrine was built.

What does the honden, a shrine's innermost hall, hold?

A sacred object. It stands for the kami and stays hidden: worshippers pray from outside, and some are boxed up so that even the priests do not know what they look like.

What are Shinto priests called?

Kannushi. Many inherit the role within their family, and at small shrines the priest often holds an ordinary full-time job and puts on the robes only for special occasions.

The young women who assist at shrines and perform the otome-mai dance are called what?

Miko. Easy to spot in a white robe and scarlet hakama, they were once seen as shamans who spoke for the kami, but today they assist the priests.

After bowing at a Shinto shrine, worshippers do what before praying silently?

Clap their hands. The usual form is two deep bows, two claps, a quiet prayer and one last bow, and the clapping has a name of its own, kashiwade.

At the water basin near a shrine's entrance, visitors rinse their hands and which other part of the body?

Their mouth. The order is left hand, right hand, then a sip taken from the cupped palm, never straight from the ladle, and the water is spat out beside the basin.

In Shinto, what is kegare, the state that worshippers take such care to avoid?

Pollution or impurity. It is a passing condition rather than a sin: contact with death, illness or blood brings it on, and a purification rite clears it away.

What is the purification ceremony called that uses fresh water, salt water or salt to remove impurity?

Misogi. Its fullest form is to wade into the sea or stand beneath a waterfall, echoing the myth in which Izanagi bathed to wash off the taint of the underworld.

Small wooden plaques on which visitors write a wish and leave it at the shrine are called what?

Ema. Unlike the charms people carry home, they are left hanging at the shrine as messages for the kami, most often asking for good health, love or success in exams.

What do people often do with an omikuji slip that predicts bad fortune?

Tie it up at the shrine. Knotting the slip to a tree or a frame set up for the purpose is a way of rejecting the prediction, so the bad luck stays put instead of following you home.

Omamori, the amulets sold at shrines and temples, traditionally take what form?

Small brightly coloured drawstring bags. Shrines treat them as carrying the power of the kami, not as souvenirs, and each is made for one wish, from safe driving to passing exams.

What is the name for the first shrine visit of the New Year?

Hatsumōde. In the first three days of January the biggest shrines each draw millions of visitors, who hand back last year's amulets and buy new ones for the year ahead.

At which ages are Japanese children dressed up and taken to a shrine each November?

Three, five and seven. The rite is called Shichi-Go-San, literally 'seven-five-three', and families go to give thanks for the children's health and to pray that they keep growing well.

What is the small Shinto altar called that many Japanese families keep on a high shelf at home?

Kamidana. Set high on a wall, it is given fresh rice, salt and water each morning, and many homes keep a separate Buddhist altar for their ancestors as well.

How do the paired lion-dog statues at a shrine entrance differ from each other?

One mouth open, one closed. The pair are sounding 'a' and 'un', the first and last sounds of the Sanskrit alphabet, which together stand for the beginning and end of all things.

In which Japanese city do deer roam free as sacred messengers of the Kasuga shrine's kami?

Nara. Legend says the shrine's first kami arrived there riding a white deer, so the herd was long held sacred and is still protected today.

In which era did Japan's leaders purge Buddhist influence from kami worship and create State Shinto?

The Meiji era (1868–1912). The new government ordered Buddhist priests, images and rites out of the shrines, ending a thousand years in which the two traditions had shared sites and ceremonies.

Who coined the term 'State Shinto' in 1945 to set government ideology apart from ordinary shrine worship?

The US occupation authorities. Their Shinto Directive of December 1945 used the label for the ideology it abolished, and the order ended all state funding and sponsorship of shrines.

In his New Year message of 1946, Emperor Hirohito publicly denied that he was what?

A living god. State Shinto had taught that the emperor was a kami in human form; once he disowned the idea, the palace's Shinto rites became the imperial family's private affair.

Which quality, called makoto, does Shinto prize in place of a written moral code?

Sincerity. Shinto has no commandments or fixed dogma: right conduct is expected to flow from a true heart, and rites of purification are meant to keep that heart clear.

The Hata clan, founders of Fushimi Inari-taisha in 711, are recorded in the Nihon Shoki as immigrants from where?

The Korean Peninsula. Their clan sanctuary on Mount Inari was founded decades before Kyoto became the capital, and it grew into the head shrine of every Inari shrine in Japan.

Which Hayao Miyazaki film is set in a bathhouse where Japan's kami come to wash and rest?

Spirited Away. Its young heroine's first customer is a foul 'stink spirit' that turns out, once she has scrubbed it clean, to be the kami of a river choked with rubbish.

What does a Shinto priest wave over people to purify them?

A paper-streamer wand. The priest sweeps it from side to side over whatever is to be cleansed, and the rite reaches beyond worshippers: building sites are purified before work begins.

The goddess Konohanasakuya-hime is worshipped at Sengen shrines as the deity of which volcano?

Mount Fuji. The first shrine to her was set up at the foot of the volcano to calm its eruptions, and today the summit itself counts as part of her head shrine.

Japan's Tenjin shrines enshrine the deified spirit of what kind of man?

A scholar and poet. Sugawara no Michizane died in exile in 903, and when storms, fires and deaths followed they were blamed on his angry spirit; deified to calm it, he now hears students' prayers before exams.