A question about shrines

[Pashina12]

In the layout of a shrine, what determines the position of the torii and the building(s)?

[Junech]

Not specifically just for Shinto shrines but it should include the following:

 

- location (building on a mountain top is different from the open field)

- what/who is worshiped (you may align certain features with your god)

- the time of ceremonies and ritual they follow (I just know that a lot of old churches are aligned in a way that the altar has the sun behind itself for the morning ceremonies)

- size (basically how many people will come to the place)

- the visit itself (the ritual you follow by visiting the place)

 

Now to the little knowledge I have about the shrines:

 

The torii is normally the shrine's entrance where the path to the shrine grounds starts.  You can have multiple toriis on that path. I think it was a symbolic gate between our "normal" world and the sacred shrine and sometimes they are on the grounds too but I don't know why.

 

At the end of the path, there are those two statues of the lion dogs. They probably have a name for them that I forgot and they were meant to guard the place. Since they are guards there can be more on the shrine grounds.

 

Somewhere near the entrance should be that "building" to cleanse yourself.

 

Other buildings were places to publicly worship and one sacred area only priests were allowed to visit.

 

I think the best way to go is to look for a nice shrine in the sives you got and just take the building locations from there.

[Pashina12]

Thanks for that. I have the "Small Shrine" kit from Sankei so I think I'll situate the buildings as they are in the illustration inside the instructions, mostly I was wondering if there's a specific direction for things, like does the torii always face east, or somesuch.

[Junech]

There was once a post with a small shrine set in the forum:

  

https://jnsforum.com/community/topic/13913-sankei-miniatuart-kit-diorama-mp03-38-shrine/

[Yugamu Tsuki]

3 hours ago, Junech said:

Not specifically just for Shinto shrines but it should include the following:

 

- location (building on a mountain top is different from the open field)

- what/who is worshiped (you may align certain features with your god)

- the time of ceremonies and ritual they follow (I just know that a lot of old churches are aligned in a way that the altar has the sun behind itself for the morning ceremonies)

- size (basically how many people will come to the place)

- the visit itself (the ritual you follow by visiting the place)

 

Now to the little knowledge I have about the shrines:

 

The torii is normally the shrine's entrance where the path to the shrine grounds starts.  You can have multiple toriis on that path. I think it was a symbolic gate between our "normal" world and the sacred shrine and sometimes they are on the grounds too but I don't know why.

 

At the end of the path, there are those two statues of the lion dogs. They probably have a name for them that I forgot and they were meant to guard the place. Since they are guards there can be more on the shrine grounds.

 

Somewhere near the entrance should be that "building" to cleanse yourself.

 

Other buildings were places to publicly worship and one sacred area only priests were allowed to visit.

 

I think the best way to go is to look for a nice shrine in the sives you got and just take the building locations from there.

The lion dogs are called komainu, one's mouth position is making the "A" while the other is making the "N", English equivalent of "A" and "Z" or alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.

[bill937ca]

Another thread, but on small shrines.  

 

Edited January 6 by bill937ca

[Cat]

In my Google Streetview crawling around Mito and Katsuta, I found tiny shrines tucked all over the place — at the steep angle of a street corner, under a highway bridge alongside a train yard, squeezed between scrap metal dealers, on a small plot with enough space for a perimeter row of trees.

The torii face whichever way it's convenient to have the entrance.
 

[Beaver]

You can also sometimes find torii outside the sacred area spanning and marking the path towards it.

 

In Higashiyama district in Kyoto, there are a series of torii leading up from a major road along various footpaths and minor roads for a long distance to the shrine itself.

 

This should not be confused with the much more famous mountain to the southeast where the whole path up the mountain is lined with a continuous tunnel of torii. Perhaps in that case the whole area is perhaps sacred.

 

There seem to be other cases of torii placed outside but leading to the sacred area, given how they can sometimes be placed astride roads or on the opposite side of a level crossing.

 

The boundary of the sacred area proper seems to generally be marked by a low fence, often carved with complex writing in the case of the larger and grander sites. Very small shrines and/or those in cramped locations often are not fenced though.

 

Generally speaking there is a huge amount of individual and local variation, at least as much as you would expect from any millennia old religion practiced over a wide area.

 

Ultimately given that you have a kit, designed by Japanese natives, just following the instructions will be enough to produce something that isn't blasphemously wrong. Point the entrance whichever way is convenient. Of course if you want to make it specifically Aizu in appearance then the thing to do is look at pictures etc of shrines in that specific area and look for identifiable features and patterns to copy.

[Beaver]

9 hours ago, Junech said:

 

Somewhere near the entrance should be that "building" to cleanse yourself.

 

It's funny - on Mt Takao the main path up the mountain runs straight through a large shrine complex, but there is a cleansing place at the lower end only.

 

What are you supposed to do if you ascended the mountain by a different route, or did something unclean on the summit before going back through on the way down?

[Junech]

4 minutes ago, Beaver said:

 

It's funny - on Mt Takao the main path up the mountain runs straight through a large shrine complex, but there is a cleansing place at the lower end only.

 

What are you supposed to do if you ascended the mountain by a different route, or did something unclean on the summit before going back through on the way down?

 

That's something I didn't bother to look into (cause I just looked roughly into it for my pen and paper/worldbuilding inspiration) but would be a good question for someone during their next shrine visit.

[cteno4]

6 hours ago, Yugamu Tsuki said:

The lion dogs are called komainu, one's mouth position is making the "A" while the other is making the "N", English equivalent of "A" and "Z" or alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.

We have a pair of 12” high komainu on either side of our front walk. I inherited them from my mother who bought them on deep sale somewhere decades ago. Wasn’t unto she got them home and dad and I set them out we realized she had bought two of the same kind! Works ok here as I put them at the head of the walkway where it meets the driveway with both looking at you out down the driveway where you approach the walk from. No one has seemed (or mention) to ever notice… I guess they are odd enough thing to run into here folks don’t notice they are the same.

 

jeff

[Kamome]

You may also get Torii on minor roads leading towards the shrine, on the way to the shrine parking or in a shopping street. These larger structures span across the whole road and are tall enough for delivery trucks to get through. Sometimes the pillars can encroach onto the road a little. These road versions, certainly in my area, tend not to be red and are often just concrete with just the base pillars painted black to avoid collisions. I would assume these were once paths containing torii and as the towns and roads have expanded, the torii are replaced with those more appropriate for the route instead of being removed altogether.

 

Some larger shrines have certain significance depending on what you are praying for.  One close to me is especially significant for travel and road safety, others maybe significant for things like study or health. All shrines seem to cover the basics for trying to protect against the turmoil of life, but some have definite focuses. Dazaifu Tenmangu shrine, south of Fukuoka, is particularly important for study success.

[Cat]

Also of note, the torii can be separated from the shrine by quite some distance.  This occurs when the shrine needs to be relocated for whatever reason but the torii is left standing in its original spot.  This sort of relocation happened a bit more frequently in the rebuilding after WW2 than in other periods of history.

[Beaver]

On 1/24/2025 at 8:38 AM, Kamome said:

Some larger shrines have certain significance depending on what you are praying for.  One close to me is especially significant for travel and road safety, others maybe significant for things like study or health.

 

Yes, there seems to be a shrine for just about everything if you look. Some members of my host family in Tokyo suffered from a rare neurological disease and every year would go on a long pilgrimage to a shrine which is supposed to specifically help sufferers of brain diseases. I never asked the name or location, seemed too sensitive a topic. The shrine at Tokyo Tower is supposed to help those with great ambitions achieve their lofty goals. There are specific places to pray to find love or maintain a relationship, to pray for good weather for one's crops, to pray for the safety of one's children, and so on.

 

Again, given the size and age of Shintoism, such specialisation is perhaps inevitable. I think most big, long lasting religions have at least some of this tendency. Note for example how Christianity seems to have patron saints for just about every kind of person or profession (a patron saint of fishermen, a patron saint of cyclists, a patron saint of astronauts even), each with their own church.

[Kamome]

Both the Amu Plaza at Hakata and Oita station have a shrine to railways on the roof of the mall buildings, owned by JR Kyushu.  Make of that what you will.😁

[Cat]

Hitachinaka Kaiun Tetsudo Shrine at Ajigaura Station is my kind of religion — a resident Kiha 222 is the God of this shrine!
 
https://visit.ibarakiguide.jp/en/column/34923/