X-Nico

19 unusual facts about Shinto


Ai Kawashima

On the night of March 11, 2011, 20 elementary school students who was able to flee the devastating tsunami after Tohoku earthquake comforted each other by singing the song Tabidachi no hi ni (On the day of departure) together at a local Shinto shrine where they spent the night.

Birth of the B-29

Opening amid scenes of volcanic eruptions, the narrator gives a brief description of the Japanese and their warlike nature, mentioning such concepts as bushido, Hakko ichiu, and Shinto, and states the belief that everything comes from the sky.

Black-tailed Gull

This Shinto shrine was raised by fishermen in 1269 (though it has been rebuilt several times since) to honour the Black-tailed Gull, which is seen as a messenger of the goddess of the fishery.

Cleyera japonica

Sakaki is considered a sacred tree in the Shinto religion along with other evergreens such as hinoki 檜 "Japanese cypress" and kansugi 神杉 "sacred cryptomeria".

Hayashi Shiryu

Shiryu originally was a student of the Shinto-ryu style of swordsmanship before becoming a disciple under the famous Miyamoto Musashi.

Honorific speech in Japanese

There is also a rarer prefix mi- (kun'yomi), which is mostly used in words related to gods and the emperor, such as mi-koshi (御輿, "portable shrine" in Shinto) and mi-na (御名, "the Holy Name" in Christianity).

Internet 1996 World Exposition

At the end of the year, a closing ceremony was held in Tokyo, where the fair archives were archived to CD-ROM, blessed by a Shinto priest and put in a time capsule.

Kannazuki

In Shinto tradition it was said that the eight million gods of Japan left their shrines and congregated annually at Izumo Taisha.

Khazar University Department of Eastern Languages and Religions Studies

The Department also includes studying religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam (as Middle Eastern traditions) and Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Jainism, Shinto, Taoism (as South and East Asian traditions) which appeared in the motherland of these Middle Eastern and Far Eastern languages and turned to be an important part of the world’s civilization.

Matsubara Naoko

Naoko Matsubara’s father was the chief priest in a Shinto shrine in Kyoto.

Miyamairi

Miyamairi (宮参り, literally "shrine visit") is a traditional Shinto rite of passage in Japan for newborns.

Russian coast defense ship General Admiral Graf Apraksin

Okinoshima was named for the small island of Munakata, Fukuoka Prefecture, which is the site of a famous Shinto shrine, and which is also geographically close to the location of the Battle of Tsushima.

Sake

Sake is often consumed as part of Shinto purification rituals (compare with the use of grape wine in the Christian Eucharist).

Silk Road transmission of art

Various other artistic influences from the Silk Road can be found in Asia, one of the most striking being that of the Greek Wind God Boreas, transiting through Central Asia and China to become the Japanese Shinto wind god Fūjin.

Supreme Court of Japan

When decisions have been rendered on such matters as the constitutionality of the Self-Defense Forces, the sponsorship of Shinto ceremonies by public authorities, or the authority of the Ministry of Education to determine the content of school textbooks or teaching curricula, the Court has generally deferred to the government.

Tenchi in Tokyo

To their confusion for the suddenness of this, Tenchi makes a shocking revelation: after careful thought, he has made up his mind to move to Tokyo for two years on behalf of his grandfather, Katsuhito, to train as a kannushi, so that he may better care for the family Shinto shrine.

The Gates

The Gates alludes to the tradition of Japanese torii gates, traditionally constructed at the entrance to Shinto shrines.

Wenceslau de Moraes

Increasingly fascinated by Japan, he converted to Buddhism and married a former geisha named Fukumoto Yone in a Shinto ceremony.

William Woodard

In Japan, he showed an interest in Japanese religion, co-authoring with Motonori Ono Shinto: The Kami Way.


Bernhard Scheid

The comprehensive religious system which became known as Yoshida Shinto was founded by Yoshida Kanetomo (1435–1511).

Chūō-ku, Sapporo

The largest shinto shrine in Hokkaidō prefecture, Hokkaido Shrine (Hokkaidō jingu) is located in Miyanomori area, and draws a number of people on the island during Oshougatsu (the New Year's Day).

Cleansing station

Chōzuya, a Shinto water ablution pavilion for a ceremonial purification rite known as temizu

Glossary of Shinto

Kōgakkan University (皇学館大学) - University located near Ise Shrine, together with Tokyo's Kokugakuin University the only one authorized to train Shinto priests.

Hirohito Ōta

Present studies are devoted to Suika Shintō, a branch of Shintō developed by Yamazaki Ansai, religious sociality, and religious activities of Lafcadio Hearn.

Honshu wolf

The wolf was afforded a benign place in Japanese folklore and religious traditions: the clan leader Fujiwara no Hidehira was said to have been raised by wolves, and the wolf is often symbolically linked with mountain kami in Shinto.

Itsukushima Shrine

The shrine is dedicated to the three daughters of Susano-o no Mikoto, Shinto god of seas and storms, and brother of the sun goddess Amaterasu (tutelary deity of the Imperial Household).

Izumo Province

Even today, the Izumo Shrine constitutes (as does the Grand Shrine of Ise) one of the more important sacred places of Shinto: it is dedicated to kami, especially to Ōkuninushi (Ō-kuni-nushi-no-mikoto), mythical progeny of Susa-no-Ō and all the clans of Izumo.

Junko Chodos

She has an appreciation of a number of the world’s great religions, including Buddhism, Shinto, Christianity, and Judaism, an awareness complemented by curiosity about technology, biology, and the natural environment.

Liberalism in Japan

1998: The party merged with the Good Governance Party (Minseito), the New Fraternity Party (Shinto-Yuai) and the Democratic Reform Party (Minshu-Kaikaku-Rengo) under the name Democratic Party of Japan (Nihon Minshuto, 民主党)

Religion in Latin America

Practitioners of the Judaism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Buddhist, Islamic, Hinduism, Bahá'í Faith, and Shinto denominations and religions also exercise in Latin America.

Sacred natural site

Several mainstream faiths can be considered indigenous in much of their range e.g. Daoism, Shinto, Hinduism and Jainism, while Zoroastrianism now has very few followers and is essentially no longer 'mainstream'.

Scrip of Edo period Japan

Japan's first banknotes, called Yamada Hagaki (山田羽書), were issued around 1600 by Shinto priests also working as merchants in the Ise-Yamada (modern Mie Prefecture), in exchange for silver.

Sumiyoshi-jinja

Sumiyoshi was one of the chief Shinto shrines (ichinomiya) of the old Chikuzen Province.

Taoism in Japan

Daoism influences made its way even to Shinto, specifically Ise and Yoshida Shintō, both of which developed in Kamakura in 1281.

Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū

Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū was popularised in the west by the extensive research and writings of late Donn F. Draeger (1922–1982).

The Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū was founded by Iizasa Ienao, born 1387 in Iizasa village (present day Takomachi, Chiba Prefecture), who was living near Katori Shrine (Sawara City, Chiba Prefecture) at the time.

Yamazaki Ansai

Also, Ansai was able to receive the secret teachings of the Yoshida and Ise Shinto traditions, which he would use in attempting to reconstruct a "pure Shinto", that would reflect the Way of Neo-Confucianism.

In his scholarly research of Shinto texts, Ansai was able to break the monopoly on Shinto doctrine, by freeing it from the private storehouses of specialist, Shinto circles (Yoshida, Ise), and thereby making it available for future generations to freely study and interpret.

Kami, the Japanese word for the spirits within objects in the Shinto faith