Here in Kyoto we’re surrounded by imperial burial mounds stretching back to the foundation of the city. It’s of interest therefore that the present emperor has specified that he wishes to be cremated instead. In the article below, taken … Read the rest
Recently on my visits to Kyoto shrines I’ve been to a shrine dedicated to a clan founder (Awata Jinja) and one to a Yamato leader who became a kami of pottery (Toki Jinja, aka Wakamiya Hachiman-gu). Now I’d like … Read the rest
Shinto and the State 1868-1988
Helen Hardacre Princeton University Press, 1989
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… Read the rest‘Nowhere else in modern history do we find so pronounced an example of state sponsorship of a religion – in some respects the state can be said to
This is the 500th posting for Green Shinto, and I’m happy to say that it’s by one of my favourite writers on Japan, Michael Hoffman. In a piece for the Japan Times, he writes of the role of swords … Read the rest
“Welcome to Gajo, the Home of the Japanese Royal Family”
Thanks to Green Shinto friend, San-shin expert David Mason, for pointing out an intriguing item from a Korean poster about the small town of Gajo in the south-east of Korea, … Read the rest
With the return of self-avowed nationalists to power in the Abe-led LDP government, Yasukuni has once again become a political football to be kicked with gleeful relish into the faces of those who suffered Japan’s war crimes in WW2. … Read the rest
There are areas of Japan with a numinous quality, where the veil between this world and the sacred is at its thinnest. One is Izumo; another is Kumano. On opposite sides of Honshu, the two regions are nonetheless linked in … Read the rest
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