The Sacred Forest Shrines of Japan
- Jane Orton
- 3 hours ago
- 7 min read
Dr. Orton explores the history of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan, the academic debate about Japanese religion, Inari (the fox deity) and the country’s beautiful forest shrines.
For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature and canonical scholarship you need to be acquainted with to get started. For everyone else, enjoy this introduction to Japan’s sacred forest shrines!
Religion in Japan
Professor of Japanese and Comparative Religious Thought and Thomas Kasulis identifies five “fountainheads” of Japanese philosophy: the ancient traditions of Shinto, Confucianism, and Buddhism, and the two “post-1868” additions of Western academic philosophy and Bushido (national morality).
Institutional Shinto rose to significance in Japan during the medieval period and was formalised in the eighteenth century when the Japanese state encouraged Shrine Shinto. Shinto is animistic, and involves worship of kami, who have spiritual power (tama). In ancient Shinto, kami might be deities, ghosts, possessed humans, spirits inhabiting natural objects, man-made objects like swords or natural objects like Mount Fuji.
Japan went through a process of rapid industrialisation and modernisation in the second half of the nineteenth century, during which ideas of nationalism and national identity were discussed. Scholar of Japanese religions Aike Rots argues that “Japanese intellectuals adopted European notions of nationhood and corresponding imperialist ideology…Constructions of ‘Shinto’ as an independent, pre-Buddhist, indigenous Japanese tradition were developed…”
Some scholars think that modern Shinto is very different from medieval and pre-modern kami worship. Japanese History Professor Kuroda Toshio argued in the 1980s that “before modern times Shinto did not exist as an independent religion.” Whereas kami worship in general might denote a variety of worship practices relating to local and national deities, some scholas see Shinto itself as an ideology.
As I’ve mentioned in other blog posts, there has been an academic debate about how we define the idea of religion, with some scholars arguing that this is a concept that is imposed politically. Religious Studies Scholar Jun’icci Isomae argues that the modern category of “religion” in Japan was based on the model of Protestant Christianity in the 1850s partly as a result of foreign pressure. This, says Isomae, led to a new kind of Japanese language treating Shintō and Buddhism as “religions.”
Historian Sarah Thal argues that modern Shinto was created as a state-sanctioned nationalist identity during the Meiji Restoration, a period that restored practical imperial rule to Japan from 1868-1912 under Emperor Meiji. Others argue that Shinto is the indigenous tradition of the Japanese people.
Shinto is not the only religious tradition in Japan that involves kami worship: Japanese Buddhism also includes the practice. Anna Andreeva agrees that there is not a single, unified strain of Shinto that traces back through Japanese history, arguing that the ideological “state” version of Shinto was assembled in the Meiji era and that a huge contributor to this was actually the influence of Buddhism. Andreeva says that much of this Shinto’s foundation derives from the medieval fascination with supernatural forces with which Buddhist esoterism was concerned.
It’s true that Shintoism and Buddhism have an interwoven relationship in Japanese history. Following the introduction of Buddhism in the sixth century, many Buddhist temples were attached to local Shinto shrines, devoted to both kami and Buddhist figures. Buddhism and Shintoism remained separate, but entangled. Shinbutsu-shūgō (“syncretism of kami and buddhas) is acknowledged to have occurred until the Meiji period. In 1868, the Meiji government separated Japanese native kami worship from Buddhism by law (shinbutsu bunri).
In Nikko, Toshogu Shrine is a good example of Shinto and Buddhist features coexisting. The shrine is elaborately decorated with wood carvings and gold leaf, which is unusual compared to some of the other shrines in Japan. Famous features of the shrine include the three wise monkeys on the storehouses and the carving of the Nemurineko (sleeping cat) on the Sakashitamon Gate.
Today, Shinto and Buddhism are perceived as distinct, but remail entangled. Michael Pye gives the example of a festival held at Kumano, in which Shinto and Buddhist elements are syncretically present. In his review of Andreeva’s book, Pye poses the question, “What, after all, is Buddhism? The term is frequently used with easygoing essentialist implications. The construction of Shinto is once again being critically assessed. But could we perhaps imagine an alternative version of the same research, even if with a slightly different balance, in which the Shinto kami are presented as contributory agents in the “assembly” of a particular form of Japanese Buddhism, and indeed of a Buddhism which is rather distinct from other Buddhisms of East Asia?”
Whatever the role of the state in these academic portrayals of Japanese religious traditions, there is no denying the personal nature of kami worship for many Japanese people. This is particularly true of Inari, the kami associated with rice, prosperity, fertility and foxes.
Inari, The Fox Kami
Anthropologist Karen Smyers argues that there is a very personal element of Inari worship and that the fox, as the main symbol of Inari, reflects this emphasis on the personal. According to Smyers, foxes in Japan are associated with the individual, not the communal. Since the mid-nineteenth century, rock altars (otsuka) have been set up to personalized forms of Inari and kanjo, where a kami remains in his shrine, but a portion of his spirit is ritually separated and enshrined in a new location, is practised.
Smyers lists behaviors that were traditionally diagnosed as “fox possession” (kitsune tsuki): “not only wanton sexuality, unusual eatine behavior, and the inappropriate use of language, but also newfound literary abilities…fox possession did not always express itself through obnoxious behavior that transgressed social norms, but sometimes empowered people to step out of their structural limitations through spontaneous skills in reading, writing, and speaking foreign languages.”
Smyers says that the personalisation of the kami widened Inari’s appeal and new roles were often added: agricultural prosperity evolved into general wealth and specific functions of Inari include ensuring marital fidelity, victory in sports, the restoration of stolen property, averting pestilence, curing colds, uniting friends and safety at sea.
Japan’s Sacred Forest Shrines
Japan is one of the most forested countries in the world, and these forests are predominantly located in the mountains. Much of these forests are composed of plantations of sugi, Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica). These plantations are monocultures and are a problem for biodiversity. There is also a concern that they encroach upon the rural satoyama landscapes (human habitation and agriculture that is shaped by natural environments). Having said this, Karen Smyers argues that the cedar is particularly associated with Inari.
Japan’s main centres of Inari worship include Fushimi Inari Taisha at the foot of Inari Mountain just south of Kyoto, and Toyokawa Inari (the Soto Zen temple Myogon-ji Toyokawa-shi, Aichi).
Fushimi Inari shrine is famous for having thousands of vermilion (a brilliant red made from the material cinnabar) torii gates on the sacred Mount Inari. The Shrine was originally located on the Inariyama Hill in Kyoto (once the capital of Japan) in 711 and was moved to its present location in 816. Inari is enshrined there because the location was chosen when rice cake was thrown into the air, turned to a swan and flew to the site.
Fushimi Inari was nationalised in the Meiji period. The main shrine building holds five pillars that are named after the five main virtues of Inari.
Karen Smyers describes “Seven Mysterious Traditions of Inari Yama.” These include a form of rock divination: “The pilgrim faces two stone lanterns with removable top portions, makes a small monetary offering, and poses a question. He then rubs his hands all over the jewel-shaped stone, and lifts the top of the lantern three times, rubbing it between liftings. If it feels light, the answer is favorable, but if heavy, negative.”
Among other traditions, there is also a natural tree on Inari’s mountain, fallen over at an angle: “People who have stiff shoulders from carrying things come and rub them under this inclined tree, which is polished smooth as a result.” Another form of Inari is said to be able to cure coughs, and at his rock altar is a mailbox containing requests to have coughs cured on postcards from all over Japan. Other traditions include tying votive bibs on the fox (and other) statues, offering food, lighting candles, and offering banners with the kami’s name.
Toyokawa Inari Shrine is a Buddhist site established in 1828, although its origins can be traced to a vision of the deity Dakini-Shinten riding a white fox, experienced by the third son of Emperor Juntoku in the 13th century. Toyokawa Inari temple was able to cleverly maintain its Buddhist identity by saying that its primary object of worship was the Buddhist deity Dakini-Shinten, rather than the Shinto Inari.
Dakini-Shinten is associated with wisdom and transformation. Also worshiped here are Inari Okami, Benzaiten (Benten; one of Japan's Seven Lucky Gods associated with music and the arts), Yuzu Inari Sonten (the god of wealth) and Kodakura Kannon Bosatsu (bodhisattva of childbirth). You’ll see distinctive red lanterns, hundreds of stone fox statues and thousands of red prayer flags.
There is also Takinoo Inari Shrine in Nikko National Park (near the above-mentioned Toshogu shrine), a sub-shrine of Futarasan Jinja Shrine. Takinoo Jinja Shrine stands beside a beautiful waterfall called the Shiraito Falls, where the ninth century Buddhist saint Kukai did some spiritual training. Kukai founded Takinoo Jinja following a vision of the goddess Tagorihime.
The Inari shrine on these grounds is small, but special, and has a big Kodane stone at which people pray for a safe childbirth. This is one of my favourite shrines in Japan.
In our next post, discover the history of karate!
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