Shinto Trivia
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49 free Shinto trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Shinto is Japan's largest religion and one of its oldest traditions, a way of the kami with no founder, no scripture and no central authority, practised at around 100,000 shrines across the country. This quiz covers the whole of it: the creation myths of Izanagi and Izanami, the sun goddess Amaterasu and her stormy brother Susanoo, the imperial regalia, the 8th-century Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, the long marriage with Buddhism and the Meiji divorce that produced State Shinto, and the living practice of shrines, priests, miko, torii, purification, omikuji, ema, matsuri and New Year visits. Easy questions ask what a torii marks and which animal serves Inari; harder ones cover the Ise rebuilding cycle, the a-un guardian statues and the 1945 Shinto Directive. It suits travellers to Japan, students of religion and Japanese culture, anime and history fans, and quiz nights that want a world-religions round beyond the usual suspects. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on Shinto, its deities, shrines and practices, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01At Shinto festivals, what is the mikoshi that crowds carry shoulder-high through the streets?
A portable shrine
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.
Q 02The term Shinto is usually translated into English as what?
The way of the kami
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.
Q 03A traditional Japanese saying puts the number of kami at what figure?
Eight million
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.
Q 04Roughly how many public Shinto shrines are there in Japan?
About 100,000
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.
Q 05Kami worship has been traced back to which prehistoric era, when wet-rice farming took hold in Japan?
Yayoi
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.
Q 06Which Japanese sport began as a ritual performed for the kami at shrines?
Sumo
Sumo. Traces of the rite survive in the ring: before each bout the wrestlers still scatter handfuls of salt to purify it.
Q 07Why did Japan's court commission the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki in the early 8th century?
To legitimise imperial rule
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.
Q 08Hieda no Are, the court attendant behind the Kojiki, was famed for what?
A prodigious memory
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.
Q 09The Nihon Shoki, a court chronicle completed in 720, was written in which language?
Chinese
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.
Q 10In Japan's creation myth, Izanagi and Izanami formed the first island by stirring the sea with what?
Spear
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.
Q 11What is the name of the realm of the dead to which Izanagi descended to retrieve his wife?
Yomi
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.
Q 12According to the Kojiki, from which part of Izanagi's body was the sun kami Amaterasu born?
His left eye
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.
Q 13Why did Amaterasu hide in a cave, plunging the earth into darkness?
Because her brother Susanoo ran wild
Q 21The Ise Grand Shrine, dedicated to Amaterasu, purportedly houses which of the imperial regalia?
The Yata no Kagami mirror
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.
Q 22The Ise Grand Shrine is dismantled and rebuilt on an adjacent site how often?
Every 20 years
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.
Q 23Itsukushima Shrine, famous for its "floating" torii, stands on an island in which prefecture?
Hiroshima
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.
Q 14In the myth, what made Amaterasu peek out of her cave?
Laughter
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.
Q 15What does the Japanese word kamikaze literally mean?
Divine wind
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.
Q 16Susanoo found the sword Kusanagi inside the tail of which creature after slaying it in Izumo?
The eight-headed serpent Orochi
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.
Q 17What does a torii gate symbolically mark?
The transition from the mundane to the sacred
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.
Q 18Who paid for the thousands of vermilion torii lining the paths of Kyoto's Fushimi Inari shrine?
Companies and private donors
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.
Q 19Which animal serves as the messenger of the kami Inari?
The fox
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.
Q 20The name of the kami Inari is usually explained as meaning what?
Rice-bearer
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.
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.
Q 24Izumo-taisha is dedicated to Ōkuninushi, the kami of what?
Marriage
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.
Q 25Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, dedicated in 1920, enshrines the spirits of Emperor Meiji and whom?
His wife, Empress Shōken
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.
Q 26What does the honden, a shrine's innermost hall, hold?
A sacred object
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.
Q 27What are Shinto priests called?
Kannushi
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.
Q 28The young women who assist at shrines and perform the otome-mai dance are called what?
Miko
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.
Q 29After bowing at a Shinto shrine, worshippers do what before praying silently?
Clap their hands
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.
Q 30At the water basin near a shrine's entrance, visitors rinse their hands and which other part of the body?
Their mouth
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.