Shinto shrines or Shinto temples?
Asian Folklore Studies
Vol.53 No.2
Oct 1994
pp.337-345
COPYRIGHT Asian Folklore Studies (Japan) 1994
DIFFERENT words are used in the Japanese language to refer to places
of Shinto worship. The type and status of the worship facility
determine the particular word used. In the English language,
however, all such facilities, regardless of type or status, are
conventionally referred to as shrines. By the same convention,
Buddhist places of worship are referred to using the nobler word
temple, though not always without problem.(1) This petrifact
convention was established in order to distinguish conveniently
between places of Shinto worship and their Buddhist counterparts, as
the Japanese themselves seem to do. But does it not also betray a
lesser regard for Shinto?
I have been unable to find out precisely where or when or when the
words shrine and temple were first used as conventional translations
respectively for jinja, yashiro, hokora, etc. on the one hand, and
tera, -ji, -in, and do on the other. I have encountered no article
or book that advocated or suggested a particular usage. The
Japanese-Portuguese dictionary Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam
(Nagasaki, 1603--1604) offers nothing of use. It avoids giving
direct translations of religious facilities, defining them instead
by means of other Japanese words, as when it defines jinja as kami
no yashiro. The third edition of HEPBURN's dictionary (1886) is only
a bit more helpful. On the English-to-Japanese side, Hepburn gives
mikoshi, zushi, and hokora under shrine; tera, miya, do, yashiro,
and byo under temple. On the Japanese-to-English side he gives the
following definitions:
hokora (hokura): A small Shinto shrine; the treasure house of a
miya.
jinja (kami no yashiro): A miya, or Shinto [sic] temple.
mi-koshi: The sacred car in which the mirror, the paper, or the
idol, which represents the Kami, is taken out in processions and
festivals.
miya: A Shinto temple where the Kami is worshiped...
yashiro: A Shinto temple, or shrine.
zushi: A small shrine in which idols are kept. Thus to Hepburn
mikoshi, hokora, and zushi are shrines; miya and jinja are temples;
and a yashiro can be either a shrine or a temple. Clearly, he saw
the difference as chiefly one of size.
Frustrated over the absence of clear documentation for the modern
convention's origins, I discussed the matter with a few native
Shinto scholars and visited the linguist Ono Susumu, but without
result. Nor could a dozen or so Japanologists of various Western
nationalities come up with an answer. Nobody knew! Nobody had even
paid a thought to the matter! I was forced to conclude that,
probably, the convention was established gradually, informally,
thorugh thought and discussion among many concerned Westerners, with
no particular individual deserving or claiming credit for it.
Probably very influential in the process, however, were William
George Aston's writings.
I am given to suspect that the convention got a big boost during the
early 1940s, when the "Shinto faith" came to be painted in havelocks
and putties and Shinto facilities became prime targets for Allied
bombers. Nevertheless, the present-day usage of shrine and temple
must have already been in the process of conventionalization at the
turn of the century. It was in regular use by ASTON even before the
turn of the century (1896), by Richard Arthur Brazabon PONSONBY-FANE
during the early decades of the twentieth century (1957), and by
Daniel Clarence HOLTOM at the time of his 1919 Ph.D. dissertation
(1922). Yet CHAMBERLAIN, in his translation of the Kojiki (1882),
preferred to use the word temple to refer to Shinto places of
worship, while HEARN, writing in 1904, used the words shrine and
temple ambiguously, indeed interchangeably.(2) As late as 1967 Jean
HERBERT, like Hearn, used the two words interchangeably, though he
seems to have preferred temple for Shinto facilities (1967). But
Herbert was an exception, for by the end of the Pacific War, the
English-language convention had been firmly set and was being
rote-learned by each budding crop of Japanophiles.(3)
Moreover, the convention has gone so far that postwar works commonly
use terms like shrine worship or shrine Shinto without first stating
what shrine means, expecting the reader to already know--or to
imagine! There are a few interesting exceptions. Robert Oleson
BALLOU, writing just at the end of the war, offers a definition that
wastes no words: A shrine, he writes, is a "god house" (1945, 14).
Wilhelmus H. M. CREEMERS, in his 1966 dissertation, offers a
translation of a simplistic definition for jinja that he plucked out
of the Kojien: shrines, he quotes, are "places where the ancestors
of the Imperial house, the kami of the mythological age, and people
who performed meritorious deeds for the country are enshrined"
(1968, 8). But Creemers's word choice in his translation merely
reflects his a priori opinion that Shinto facilities are "shrines."
And so it goes.
The disadvantages of the English convention appear to have brought
about little concern among most Western Shinto scholars and the
Shinto establishment has followed along without complaint. Among the
disadvantages are: 1) as already adumbrated, the convention ignores
distinctions among the various types of Shinto facilities; 2) Shinto
and Buddhist elements are often so syncretized at a single place of
worship as to render the Buddhist/Shinto distinction uninformative
and even disinformative(4); 3) while there are English words for
places of worship, such as synagogue and mosque, that serve to
distinguish between religious systems, shrine and temple are not
among them and are not properly used in that way; 4) etymologically,
the English word shrine has a different referent than most of the
Japanese words to which it is equated--the English word originated
in the Latin scrinium, which means "solander case" or "chest for
books, papers, etc." The Oxford English Dictionary does--at the
bottom of its list of definitions--reluctantly allow the following
meaning for shrine: "A place where worship is offered or devotions
are paid to a saint or deity; a temple, church." Surely this is in
acknowledgement of the present, careless usage and of the historical
fact that many European churches indeed were built around relics or
saints' tombs; but ordinarily the word shrine is not reasonably
applied to anything much more elaborate than a cabinet or a shed, or
by extension to an alcove or other specific area where a sacred
object is reposited or displayed.
The fourth disadvantage is particularly telling. How on earth can
the meaning of shrine possibly be so distended as to include even a
minority of the following elements typically found at various places
of Shinto worship?
* sacred mountains (shintai-zan), streams, and groves; symbolic
gates (torii); stone gate-guardians (shishi or koma-inu); avenues of
approach (sando), frequently including staircases; processional
ways; individual stones and trees that are especially sacred;
* sekos; gravel pavement in the temenos compound; lavabos or stoups
(mitarashi), which are often found under the roofs of lavatory
structures (temizu-ya);(5) standing lanterns (toro); stores for
dispensing sacred lots (omikuji), amulets or talismans (omamori),
and such written material as ritual calendars or liturgies;
* special-purpose structures such as garages for the festival arks
(mikoshi-gura); ceremonial halls (gishiki-den) for wedding
ceremonies and the like; abstention halls (saikan) in which priests
prepare for ceremonies; wineries (sakadono) where communion wine
(miki) is made or stored etc.;
* thesauri; votive-picture galleries (ema-den); halls or pavilions
for sacred saltations (kagura-den); assorted subordinate and
affiliated sanctuaries (massha and sessha); oratories (haiden or
yohai-jo) where worshipers interface with the deity; halls of
offerings (heiden or norito-den) where rites are performed and
orisons intoned; main sancturary (honden, shinden, or shoden) where
the object of worship or spirit of the deity abides--sometimes in
conjunction with a remote sanctuary (okumiya);
* offertory chests; altars; subordinate altars (aidono); seat of the
deity (shinza); the objects of worship (shintai, mitamashiro, or
yorishiro). And this is not to mention the cultural treasures,
ornaments, utensils and instruments, furniture, festoonery, kitchens
for preparing food offerings, libraries, museums, rectories or
administration buildings, repair shops, and so on. Believe it or
not, at Ise there is even a ghat, plus a sacred cave with a
waterfall inside, and a sacred wind-cave (the ghat and caves being
little known in the Occident). In fact, the vast wooded facilities
at Ise, traditionally Japan's most hallowed, occupy a position in
Japanese culture that is quite similar to the position of the
Eleusinian temple complex in the Hellenic culture, and they are by
no means inferior to the Eleusinian complex in such physical matters
as complexity, layout, organization, or structure--or in the
community of divinities celebrated there.
Not all of the elements in the long list above are found at a single
Shinto facility, but depending on the case, many of them very often
are. In any one place of worship the assorted elements function and
are administered and maintained as a collective unit, and as a unit
they are not reasonably denominated "shrine." The meaning of the
word shrine simply cannot fit the variety and complexity here, and a
point is reached where, essentially, only the word temple fits.
Strolling about the expansive precincts of a major facility, such as
Kitano Tenman-gu or Kamigamo Jinja in Kyoto, and observing people at
their personal devotions or participating in solemn rites of one
kind or another, one is impressed with being in a temple--indeed not
with being in a box or a cabinet or a shed.
The irritating point is that the English convention somehow seems to
have been established by Western minds that were struggling to cope
with the intricacies of Buddhist philosophy while unable to discover
much of any significant meaning in the Shinto rituals. Shinto often
has seemed to be considered a "survival' of a "simple" or quaint
tradition of "primitive nature worship." The learned scholar of the
present day knows--or ought to know--that little could be so removed
from the truth (see, e.g., KURODA 1981, 19). The English
convention's poor discrimination between types of worship
facilities, its semantic gymnastics, and its prejudice in favor of
Buddhism are problem enough; adding such an evolutionist implication
into all that, casts the convention under thirteen glooms.
Scholars have been glad enough to apply the word temple to classical
Greek facilities with little more to boast than a sanctuary the size
of a beehive. Why should the standards differ for Japan? In any
event, the English convention smacks of Western ethnocentrism, which
all would grant ought to be expunged from respectable
scholarship.(6) One indeed can find little reason to perpetuate such
a factitious and misleading convention, however ingrained, since the
academically useful English literature on Shinto, though recently
showing some signs of healthy growth, still is limited. It scarcely
is too late to establish a more accurate convention, one that might
promise to avoid distorting the image of, or hindering understanding
of, Shinto. At the very least editors might cease insisting that the
convention be rigiorously and blindly followed.
One solution clearly would be to abandon the English terms
altogether and apply the various native terms as approapriate.
Actually, the merits and demerits of using native terms have been
much discussed in the halls of anthropology as a means of reducing
Western ethnocentrism in written works. In the case of Shinto places
of worship, however, the proliferation of terms would be intolerable
to nonspecialist readers, and would force writers to consume space
defining their terms.
CONCLUSIONS
In future works dealing with Shinto for a general audience,
preferred usage should reserve the word shrine for designating
mikoshi, hokora, and reliquaries tabernacling local deities or
venerated objects; for minor mausolea (sorei-sha, otama-ya, etc.);
and for minor heroa. Perhaps also for household kamidana, although
here "household sanctuary" or "household altar" would seem often
appropriate.(7) And a zushi might be referred to as a "shrine,"
"reliquary," or "feretory" depending on its importance and purpose.
Other places of Shinto worship should preferably be denominated
"temple" or "temple complex" according to their structure; where
showing a distinction between Shinto and Buddhist temples is deemed
desirable or necessary, the appropriate adjective could be easily
employed. A honden, shinden, or shoden within a large and complex
temple precinct could be called "sanctuary," "main sanctuary,"
"inner sanctuary," "holy of holies," or "sanctum sanctorum" as needs
be to make it stand out or to distinguish it from the rest of the
temple complex.
Terms like himorogi and iwasaka pose a special problem for the
translator, and will have to be explained to the general reader in
any event.
In technical works, of course, the words jingu, taiha, jinja, miya,
yashiro, hokora, sorei-sha, iwasaka, mikoshi, kamidana, honden,
etc., etc. are best carried over into the English as prophylaxis
against confusion among specialists.
POSTSCRIPT
The argument above was originally written in 1983,(8) when the late
Fanny Hagin Mayer, a devout Catholic, was still very much alive.
After reading a manuscript of the argument, she responded with a few
memoirs, which I reproduce here:(9)
1. In a farmhouse in Niigata there was a very elaborate altar,
[with] gold lotus flowers and leaves (Buddhist), and other
ornaments. I exclaimed over what a rippa na O-Butsudan,
but my old hostess corrected me by calling it Senzo-sama!
2. An old shopkeeper who went regularly in early morning to
pray at the jinja told me that in bad weather or when he did
not feel equal to it, he went to St. Ignatius Church because
there was a kami there.
3. When an old neighbor on the campus at Gakugei U. asked me
to take her to my church, I agreed. As she stepped inside,
she clapped her hands and bowed to the kami! Incidentally,
sometimes she was too busy to get fresh flowers for her kami-
dana and used to come to ask for a few in my dooryard--of
course I divided with her. Then, the next time she got to a
flower shop, she would come over with a few posies for Maria-
sama, a little figure I had in my bedroom.
These memoirs give us a taste of the way many of the Japanese
themselves regarded the position of their religion, especially
vis-a-vis Western religions, and add a little perspective to the
argument above. I doubt that anyone would want to call St. Ignatius
Church a "shrine."
(Feb. 14th, 1994)
NOTES
(1.)Today the English word temple is by and large adequate for the
uses to which it is applied in connection with modern Buddhist
facilities. However, the word often seems inadequate, even mistaken,
as an English rendering of historical Buddhist facilities. Buddhism
originally was an entirely monastic tradition, and the monasticism
was preserved by the missionaries who spread Buddhism across Asia to
Japan, where it survived more or less intact until about the
beginning of the Tokugawa period. Japanese Buddhist facilities up to
then are better called monasteries than temples. But even today,
although a main devotional hall within a facility might of course
easily quality as a temple, temple cannot comfortably be applied to
an entire complex that includes gates (sanmon), groves, gardens,
meditation hall, pagoda, bellframe, library, lavabo, dormitory,
rectory, refectory, bath, outhouses, offices, and perhaps a flock of
pigeons. For such an aggregate, I should prefer the term "temple
complex." Smaller branch facilities housed completely within a
single structure, however, might safely be denominated temple, but
even some of these would no doubt better be termed hermitages.
(2.)Hearn was a prolific writer. I am referring here specifically to
his Japan: An Interpretation, which was first published in 1904. I
have used the 1955 Tuttle edition as reprinted in 1971 (see, e.g.,
pp. 121--23).
(3.)In the April 1945 issue of National Geographic, the caption to a
photograph of a war-battered torii on Tinian Island declares the
same Shinto facility to be at once a "temple" and a "shrine," as
though to cover all possibilities (MOORE 1945, 467). Obviously there
still was some confusion at the end of the war. Note, however, that
the author here is a journalist, not a Japanologist, Shinto
specialist, or historian of religions.
(4.)On the inseparability of Shinto and Buddhism, see KURODA 1981.
Allan GRAPARD demurs, correctly questioning whether Buddhism and
Shinto ever achieved true synthesis, and notes that monks and
priests had their conflicts at common facilities (1992, 147); still,
it is difficult to say what, by the convention, a syncretized
facility ought to be called. Cf. BODIFORD 1993.
(5.)Sometimes a natural stream (haraegawa) serves for lavation.
(6.)On ethnocentrism among Western Japanologists, see MINEAR 1980.
(7.)In careful usage, a kamidana within a shrine or temple often
becomes an "altar," or sometimes a "feretory shelf." The literal
translation "god-shelf," which often has been given for kamidana,
might seem quaintly poetic but is uninformative beyond suggesting
that the shelf relates to divine matters.
(8.)A quick check of the literature on Shinto since 1983 has shown
little change in usage of the terms temple and shrine in that time.
(9.)Personal communication, 1983.
REFERENCES CITED
ASTON, William George, trans. 1896 Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from
the earliest times to A.D. 697. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner.
Reprint, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1956.
BALLOU, Robert Oleson 1945 Shinto, the unconquered enemy. New York:
Viking Press.
BODIFORD, William M. 1993 Review of Allan G. Grapard, The protocol
of the gods: A study of the Kasuga cult in Japanese history
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). Journal of Asian
Studies 52: 1015--17.
CHAMBERLAIN, Basil Hall, trans. 1882 Ko-ji-ki, or records of ancient
matters. Supplement to Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan
10.
CREEMERS, Wilhelmus H. M. 1968 Shrine Shinto after World War II.
Leiden: E.J. Brill. (Revised version of a 1966 Ph.D. dissertation)
GRAPARD, Allan G. 1992 Review of Herbert E. Plutschow, Chaos and
cosmos: Ritual in early and medieval Japanese literature (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1990). Asian Folklore Studies 51: 145--48.
HARDACRE, Helen 1989 Shinto and the State 1868--1988. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
HEARN, Lafcadio 1904 Japan: An attempt at interpretation. New York:
Macmillan.
HEPBURN, James Curtis 1886 A Japanese-English and English-Japanese
dictionary. 3rd ed. Tokyo: Maruya.
HERBERT, Jean 1967 Shinto: At the fountainhead of Japan. London:
George Allen and Unwin.
HOLTOM, Daniel Clarence 1922 The political philosophy of modern
Shinto: A study of the state religion of Japan. Transactions of the
Asiatic Society of Japan 49/2: i-iv, 1--325. (Revised version of a
1919 Ph.D. dissertation)
KURODA Toshio 1981 Shinto in the history of Japanese religion.
Journal of Japanese Studies 7: 1--21.
MINEAR, Richard H. 1980 Orientalism and the study of Japan.
Journal of Asian Studies 39: 507--17.
MOORE, Robert W. 1945 South from Saipan. The National Geographic
Magazine 87: 441--74.
PONSONBY-FANE, Richard Arthur Brazabon 1957 Studies in Shinto and
shrines: Papers selected from the works of the late R.A.B.
Ponsonby-Fane. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society.