Shinto - Temples and Shrines
Well it's been a while since we've had a post, and now that the school year has started up again, I figured it was time! This time I'm going to start working on a series of posts on Shinto, the 'traditional religion' of Japan. For those of you who know me, Shinto was my area of study for my Masters degree.
First things first, Shinto is written with two kanji 神道, meaning gods and way. Typical translations of Shinto read 'Way of the Gods.' Shinto itself has a very long history in Japan, but what we see today in modern Japan is not the traditional beliefs from long ago. Cursory looks at the history of religion in Japan show that the two primary belief systems are Shinto and Buddhism. Buddhism came from the mainland and tried to supplant Shinto in Japan, but failed. In reality, it didn't fail that much. Shinto today has many aspects taken from Buddhism. In fact it can be very hard to see which aspects are Shinto and which are Buddhism in nature.
This is why so many temple and shrines are seen together. A temple, a Buddhist establishment, will often also have a shrine, a Shinto establishment, on the same grounds. So how can you tell if an establishment is one or the other if they don't have English names? Well, the Japanese for a temple is 寺, read tera, and if you see the name of an establishment with this character at the end of the name, it means it's a Buddhist temple. Japanese for shrine is 神社, read jinja, so again if you see these characters written at the end of a name (sometimes just 社, sometimes both), it means it's a Shinto shrine. If you don't have a reading for the name but HEAR it instead, again there's a way to tell. If the name ends with -sha, as in the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha, or -ja, as in Harunajinja, it's a shrine. If it ends with -ji, as in Shokakuji, it's a temple.
But if you're just wandering around and happen to walk into a clearly-religious ground and if you don't see a name, how do you know which it is? Since many temples and shrines are on the same grounds, you can probably find both if you look hard enough. But the name given to the area will be the primary establishment, or the biggest building. Both temples and shrines can have massive buildings, offering boxes, and bells to ring. They can both have statuary and special symbols. But they can also be small and have almost none of these things. So there are two indications to look for in determining shrine or temple. If there is a cemetery, it's a temple. This is not to say all cemeteries are in temples though, I see plenty small cemeteries just randomly in the fields. But as Shinto doesn't have a firm take on the afterlife, you won't find a cemetery in a shrine area. Second indication: if there is a torii gate at the entrance, it's a shrine. Despite the great mixing of Shinto and Buddhism, torii gates are still seen as only being for Shinto. For an example, the picture is from Suga Shrine, and has a large stone torii gate at the entrance. And if you see torii gates that are red, that means they are for the deity Inari! More on that in a later post.
So now if you come to Japan, you should be able to differentiate between shrines and temples, and trust me, there are A LOT of them everywhere in Japan.
First things first, Shinto is written with two kanji 神道, meaning gods and way. Typical translations of Shinto read 'Way of the Gods.' Shinto itself has a very long history in Japan, but what we see today in modern Japan is not the traditional beliefs from long ago. Cursory looks at the history of religion in Japan show that the two primary belief systems are Shinto and Buddhism. Buddhism came from the mainland and tried to supplant Shinto in Japan, but failed. In reality, it didn't fail that much. Shinto today has many aspects taken from Buddhism. In fact it can be very hard to see which aspects are Shinto and which are Buddhism in nature.
This is why so many temple and shrines are seen together. A temple, a Buddhist establishment, will often also have a shrine, a Shinto establishment, on the same grounds. So how can you tell if an establishment is one or the other if they don't have English names? Well, the Japanese for a temple is 寺, read tera, and if you see the name of an establishment with this character at the end of the name, it means it's a Buddhist temple. Japanese for shrine is 神社, read jinja, so again if you see these characters written at the end of a name (sometimes just 社, sometimes both), it means it's a Shinto shrine. If you don't have a reading for the name but HEAR it instead, again there's a way to tell. If the name ends with -sha, as in the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha, or -ja, as in Harunajinja, it's a shrine. If it ends with -ji, as in Shokakuji, it's a temple.
But if you're just wandering around and happen to walk into a clearly-religious ground and if you don't see a name, how do you know which it is? Since many temples and shrines are on the same grounds, you can probably find both if you look hard enough. But the name given to the area will be the primary establishment, or the biggest building. Both temples and shrines can have massive buildings, offering boxes, and bells to ring. They can both have statuary and special symbols. But they can also be small and have almost none of these things. So there are two indications to look for in determining shrine or temple. If there is a cemetery, it's a temple. This is not to say all cemeteries are in temples though, I see plenty small cemeteries just randomly in the fields. But as Shinto doesn't have a firm take on the afterlife, you won't find a cemetery in a shrine area. Second indication: if there is a torii gate at the entrance, it's a shrine. Despite the great mixing of Shinto and Buddhism, torii gates are still seen as only being for Shinto. For an example, the picture is from Suga Shrine, and has a large stone torii gate at the entrance. And if you see torii gates that are red, that means they are for the deity Inari! More on that in a later post.
So now if you come to Japan, you should be able to differentiate between shrines and temples, and trust me, there are A LOT of them everywhere in Japan.
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