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Denominations

Shrine Shinto

Shinto

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Origin 1868 to 1946

The mainstream and most widespread form of Shinto, centered on the network of public shrines (jinja) where the kami are enshrined and served. It encompasses community festivals (matsuri), rites of passage, seasonal observances, and everyday veneration. Most Japanese shrines belong to its central coordinating body, and its practices form the ordinary public face of Shinto.

Facts
Organisation
Governance
Priestly office passing by descent 1
Many shrine priesthoods pass within families, though the qualification is now a licence from a recognised institution.
Governance
Autonomous local bodies under a national umbrella association 1
Some eighty thousand shrines under the Association of Shinto Shrines (Jinja Honcho), which they join voluntarily and several major shrines have left.
Ordination
Open to women and men 1
Ordination
Office passes by descent 1
Many shrine priesthoods pass within families, though the qualification is a licence from a recognised institution.
Relation to the State
Disestablished 2
Imperial Japan organised shrine worship into State Shinto as a required patriotic institution rather than a private religion from the Meiji era in 1868 until Japan's 1945 defeat; the occupation authority's Shinto Directive of December 1945 ordered the state to end all sponsorship, funding and promotion of shrine Shinto, and Article 20 of Japan's 1947 constitution completed the separation by guaranteeing freedom of religion and forbidding state religious activity.
Origins
Origin Period
1868 to 1946 1
Origin Period
"Shrine Shinto" as a category is a product of the Meiji separation of kami and buddhas from 1868 and of the post-war reorganisation of 1946 1
Place of Origin
The Japanese archipelago 1
Founder
No founder. 1
Status
Status Today
Living tradition, practised today 1
History
Separation or Divergence
The Meiji state separated kami worship from Buddhism in 1868 and from the recognised Shinto sects, and classified the shrines as non-religious; after 1945 the Shinto Directive ended state support and the shrines reorganised as a private association. 1
Date of Separation
1868 to 1946 1
Practice
Liturgical Language
Classical Japanese 1
Learn More
Not a Religion, Said the State

Shrine Shinto is the ordinary public practice of Shinto: the network of shrines where the kami are enshrined and served, the festivals, the rites of passage, and the visits that a very large proportion of Japanese people make without regarding themselves as belonging to a religion.

It has no founder, no scripture in the revealed sense, no creed and no conversion. The Kojiki of 712 and the Nihon Shoki of 720 record the mythology, and the Engishiki of the tenth century records the ritual procedure, but none of these functions as scripture does elsewhere. What a shrine offers is not doctrine but access: purification, offering, petition, and the observance of the year.

Its modern institutional form, however, is not ancient. It was made in the nineteenth century. The shinbutsu bunri order of 1868 separated kami from buddhas, tearing apart an amalgamation of Shinto and Buddhist practice that had been the ordinary condition of Japanese religion for a thousand years, and stripping Buddhist imagery, clergy and buildings out of the shrines.

Then came a definition with consequences. From 1882 the state classified shrine practice as not a religion, a suprareligious national observance, while classifying the organised Shinto sects as religions. That allowed the government to require shrine attendance of everyone, Christians and Buddhists included, without formally infringing the religious freedom its constitution granted. It is among the most consequential definitional manoeuvres any modern state has performed on a religion.

1945, and the Association That Replaced the State

The arrangement was ended by order of an occupying army. On 15 December 1945 the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers issued the Shinto Directive, abolishing state sponsorship, support, control and dissemination of what it called State Shinto. The directive did not ban Shinto. It reclassified it as a religion, cut it off from public funding and from the state administration that had run it, and prohibited its use as an instrument of ideology. Disestablishment, not prohibition.

The shrines then had to organise themselves, and in February 1946 they founded the Association of Shinto Shrines, a single religious corporation with an office in every prefecture. Something on the order of seventy-eight to seventy-nine thousand shrines belong to it, out of roughly a hundred thousand in the country. Member shrines take the Ise Grand Shrine as the foundation of their practice, and the association distributes Ise's Jingu Taima amulets, a system that is both the doctrinal and the financial spine of the arrangement. It runs two universities for the training of priests.

Not everything belongs to it. Fushimi Inari Taisha and Nikko Toshogu are independent, and so is Yasukuni. A steady sequence of prominent shrines has left in recent decades over governance, autonomy and money: Meiji Jingu withdrew in 2004 and rejoined in 2010, Tomioka Hachimangu left in 2017, Kotohira-gu in 2020, Kamakura-gu in 2024.

The association also has a political arm, which lobbies on national symbols, on education, and on official visits to Yasukuni. Whether that is compatible with the constitution's separation of religion and state is argued in Japanese politics continually.

Yasukuni, the Numbers, and What Counts as Adherence

Yasukuni Shrine was founded in 1869 to enshrine those who died in the service of the emperor, and it is the most contested religious site in East Asia. In October 1978 its chief priest secretly enshrined fourteen men convicted as Class A war criminals. No emperor has visited since. Prime ministerial visits (Nakasone in 1985, Koizumi annually from 2001 to 2006, Abe in December 2013), have each produced protests from China and South Korea and, in the last case, from the United States as well. The adjoining museum presents an account of the war that Japanese as well as foreign historians dispute.

The adherent figures require care, because two incompatible measures circulate. The government's religious yearbook reports Shinto adherents in the order of a hundred million, because shrines report parish catchments and those catchments are geographical. Surveys asking people whether they are Shintoists return small single-digit percentages. Neither figure is wrong; they measure different things, and presenting either alone misleads. The underlying reality is that most Japanese people take part in shrine practice (the new year visit, the shrine visit for a child, the local festival), and most would not call themselves religious, and both of those statements are true at once.

That is the fact about Shinto that the vocabulary of religious adherence handles worst. It is not a body one joins, and it does not ask for belief. It asks for participation, and it gets it from people who would deny being adherents of anything.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names Shrine Shinto directly: "Boyd and Tetsuya Nishimura, arguing that Spirited Away carries more Shrine Shinto and Japanese folk religious imagery than any of Hayao Miyazaki's other translated films, centered on the bathhouse..."

This source names Shrine Shinto directly: "division of Shinto practice, alongside Shrine Shinto (Jinja Shinto) and Sect Shinto (Kyoha Shinto)."

Source Shinto: The Kami WaySokyo Ono with William P. Woodard

Belongs to Tradition

Shinto, Religions

Branch Of

Shinto, Religions

Holds Element

The shrine at Nagoya holds the sword among the imperial regalia and is second only to Ise in that respect.

The lacquered cap completes the vesture, and its shape follows the court dress of the Heian period from which the whole costume descends.

Source A Year in the Life of a Shinto ShrineJohn K. Nelson

The small wooden plaque carrying a written request is hung at the shrine, and the racks of them are the most legible record of what a parish is actually asking for.

Source A Year in the Life of a Shinto ShrineJohn K. Nelson

The Engishiki, the tenth century compilation of shrine ritual procedure, codifies liturgies this branch's shrines still perform.

Source Engishiki: Procedures of the Engi EraTranslated by Felicia Gressitt Bock

The shrine to Inari at the head of some thousands of subordinate shrines, with the mountain path behind it lined by gates given as offerings.

Gagaku, Sacred Sound

Performed at the major shrines and at the imperial court, and kept as an ensemble tradition for over a thousand years.

Said at the shrine washbasin and in cold-water purification, and the nearest thing ordinary Shinto practice has to a formula anyone may use.

The inner shrine holds the mirror among the imperial regalia and is rebuilt on an adjacent site every twenty years, and it stands at the head of the shrine system.

The shrine built over the water on the island, whose gate stands in the sea at high tide, and whose island was long kept free of birth and death.

The shrine to Okuninushi is among the oldest, and the tenth lunar month is called the month without gods everywhere except here, where the gods are held to gather.

The plain white robe is worn for ordinary services and by shrine functionaries, white being the colour of purity in shrine practice.

Source Shinto: The Kami WaySokyo Ono with William P. Woodard
Kagura, Sacred Dances

The mythology's own warrant for it stands near its beginning: the dance that drew Amaterasu back out of the cave.

Source A Year in the Life of a Shinto ShrineJohn K. Nelson

The household shelf holds the talisman from the shrine and receives daily offerings of rice, salt and water.

Source Shinto: The Kami WaySokyo Ono with William P. Woodard

The kannushi serves a shrine and the kami enshrined there, and the core of the work is purification and the presentation of offerings rather than preaching.

Source Shinto: A HistoryHelen Hardacre

The hunting robe became the formal vestment of the higher grades of the shrine priesthood, its colour set by the rank the priest holds.

Source Shinto: The Kami WaySokyo Ono with William P. Woodard

The Meiji ranking of shrines determined their funding, the standing of their priests and their place in state ceremony, and shrine Shinto is the body it classified.

The miko assists at the shrine and performs the kagura dances, and the office descends from a mediumistic role that shrine practice has largely left behind.

Source Shinto: A HistoryHelen Hardacre

The portable shrine carries the deity through the parish at the annual festival, which is the one day the kami leaves the shrine.

Source A Year in the Life of a Shinto ShrineJohn K. Nelson

The Sengen shrines at the foot and on the summit enshrine the deity of the mountain, and the summit shrine is the property of the head shrine rather than of the state.

Addressed to the kami in an archaic register distinct from ordinary Japanese, and delivered rather than sung.

Source Encyclopedia of Shinto (Shinto Jiten)Kokugakuin University

The paper or wooden talisman is taken home from the shrine and placed on the household shelf for the year.

Source A Year in the Life of a Shinto ShrineJohn K. Nelson

Recited at the great purification held twice a year and at shrine ceremonies generally.

Source Encyclopedia of Shinto (Shinto Jiten)Kokugakuin University

The sealed brocade charm is carried on the person and returned to the shrine at the year's end to be burned.

Source A Year in the Life of a Shinto ShrineJohn K. Nelson

The drawn fortune is read and, when it is bad, tied to a frame at the shrine so that the shrine carries it instead of the drawer.

Branches of the evergreen are offered at the altar, and the offering of one is the ordinary act of a worshipper at a formal rite.

Source Shinto: The Kami WaySokyo Ono with William P. Woodard

Hereditary priestly families still hold the headship of a small number of major shrines, an exception within a system that is otherwise centralised and credential-based.

Shamanism, Disciplines

Shrine practice has old roots in spirit mediumship and the miko still has a place in it, but the modern shrine establishment defined itself as public observance rather than as spirit work.

Source Encyclopedia of Shinto (Shinto Jiten)Kokugakuin University

The folded paper streamers hang from the rope and from the purification wand, and their zigzag is the mark of the boundary itself.

Source Shinto: The Kami WaySokyo Ono with William P. Woodard

The twisted rope marks off ground that has been purified, and hangs at gates, around trees and across shrine buildings.

Source Shinto: The Kami WaySokyo Ono with William P. Woodard
Shinpukuji Kojiki, Textual Witnesses

The oldest complete copy of the chronicle, made in the fourteenth century, is the textual basis for a work shrine practice treats as the account of the descent of the kami.

Source Encyclopedia of Shinto (Shinto Jiten)Kokugakuin University

The object in which the deity is enshrined is not itself the deity and is not shown, often not even to the priesthood.

Source Shinto: The Kami WaySokyo Ono with William P. Woodard
Yasukuni Shrine, Sacred Sites

The shrine is a religious corporation administered independently of the association to which the great majority of shrines belong, so it is of the tradition without being within its principal body.

Anything a kami is invited to occupy for the duration of a rite, which is why a rope around a rock or a tree is enough to make a shrine.

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

The Engishiki, the tenth century compilation of shrine ritual procedure, codifies liturgies this branch's shrines still perform.

Source Engishiki: Procedures of the Engi EraTranslated by Felicia Gressitt Bock
Source Ancient Japanese RitualsErnest Mason Satow (translator)
Harae, Doctrines

Purification, the rites that remove impurity and restore fitness to approach the kami, is Shinto practice grounded in doctrine held in this branch.

Source KojikiDonald L. Philippi (translator)
Source Hayachine Kagura (UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage)UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage
Hirohito, Figures

Shrine Shinto was administered as a civic observance under his reign until 1945, then reorganized within months as a private association of shrines.

Source A New History of ShintoJohn Breen and Mark Teeuwen
Kami, Doctrines

Kami, the deities, ancestors, natural forces and any presence that commands awe, is the central object of reverence in this branch of Shinto.

Source Shinto: The Kami WaySokyo Ono with William P. Woodard

Shrine Shinto is built on the kami of place, the deity of a particular mountain, grove or village enshrined and served with offerings and festivals rather than expounded in doctrine.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Kannagara, Doctrines

Living in accordance with the kami, the natural and spontaneous way of the divine, is Shinto doctrine held in this branch.

Clergy or specialist role within Shrine Shinto.

Source Encyclopedia of Shinto (Shinto Jiten)Kokugakuin University
Kegare, Doctrines

Ritual impurity, the polluted condition associated with death, blood and decay that must be cleansed before approaching the kami, is Shinto doctrine held in this branch.

Source KojikiDonald L. Philippi (translator)

The Kojiki's account of the kami and the founding of the shrine cults underlies this branch's mythology and ritual.

Source KojikiDonald L. Philippi (translator)
Matsuri, Doctrines

The Shinto festival, the communal rite of serving and celebrating the kami through the shrine network, is central to this branch's ordinary public practice.

Clergy or specialist role within Shrine Shinto.

Source Encyclopedia of Shinto (Shinto Jiten)Kokugakuin University
Mitama, Doctrines

The spirit of a kami or person, having distinct gentle and rough aspects, is Shinto doctrine held in this branch.

Source Shinto: A HistoryHelen Hardacre

The mountain is the object of the Sengen shrines and of the Fuji confraternities.

Source A New History of ShintoJohn Breen and Mark Teeuwen
Musubi, Doctrines

The generative, binding power by which things come into being and are joined, named in the oldest myths, is Shinto cosmological doctrine held in this branch.

Source A New History of ShintoJohn Breen and Mark Teeuwen

The Nihon Shoki's chronicle of the kami and the imperial line underlies this branch's mythology and its historic ties to shrine administration.

Source Ancient Japanese RitualsErnest Mason Satow (translator)
Source Ancient Japanese RitualsErnest Mason Satow (translator)

This branch defines belonging chiefly through correct practice, ritual observance at the shrine, rather than through a fixed body of formal doctrine.

Source Shinto: A HistoryHelen Hardacre
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

This branch is the inclusive, encompassing form of Shinto, mostly entered by birth into a community rather than by joining, in contrast to the voluntary congregational sects.

Source Shinto: A HistoryHelen Hardacre
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Tamashii, Doctrines

The soul or animating spirit, able to be strengthened, to depart, or to persist after death, is Shinto teaching held in this branch.

Source Shinto: A HistoryHelen Hardacre

Shrine Shinto takes its name from this, a practice centred on tens of thousands of public shrines with their priests, festivals and seasonal visits, rather than on any creed or founder.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Sources
1. Shinto: A History
Helen Hardacre, Oxford University Press, 2017View the Source
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
Shinto: The Kami Way
Sokyo Ono with William P. Woodard, Tuttle, 1962
Encyclopedia of Shinto (Shinto Jiten)
Kokugakuin University, Kokugakuin University, 2006View the Source
A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine
John K. Nelson, University of Washington Press, 1996View the Source
Shinto Directive (SCAPIN-448)
General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, 1945Issued 15 December 1945
Quote, Issued 15 December 1945
Abolished state sponsorship and control of shrine Shinto and reclassified it as a religion. Disestablishment rather than prohibition.
View the Source
Shukyo Nenkan (Religious Yearbook)
Agency for Cultural Affairs, JapanShinto adherent series
Quote, Shinto adherent series
Reported adherents in the order of a hundred million reflect shrine parish catchments rather than self-identification, which surveys put in single digits.
Engishiki: Procedures of the Engi Era
Translated by Felicia Gressitt Bock, Sophia University, 1970The ritual procedures
Quote, The ritual procedures
The tenth-century record of shrine ritual, which functions as procedure rather than as scripture.
View the Source
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