Ōmiwa Shrine: Information from Answers.com

This article is about the shrine in Sakurai city. For similarly named shrines, see Ōmiwa Shrine (disambiguation).

Ōmiwa Shrine 大神神社

Large torii in front of Mount Miwa
Information
Dedicated to	Ōmononushi Ōnamuchi Sukunahikona-no-kami Mount Miwa
Address	1422 Miwa, Sakurai-shi, Nara-ken
Phone	0744-42-6633
Website	Homepage
Glossary of Shinto

Ōmiwa Shrine (大神神社, Ōmiwa-jinja^?), also known as Miwa Shrine (三輪神社, Miwa-jinja^?, alternately written as 三輪明神 Miwa-myōjin), is a Shinto shrine located in Sakurai, Nara, Japan.^[1] The shrine is noted because it contains no sacred images or objects because it is believed to serve Mount Miwa, the mountain on which it stands.^[2] For the same reason, it has a worship hall (拝殿, haiden^?), but no place for the deity to be housed (神殿, shinden^?). In this sense, it is a model of what the first Shinto shrines were like.^[3] Ōmiwa Shrine is one of the oldest extant Shinto shrines in Japan and the site has been sacred ground for some of the earliest religious practices in Japan. Because of this, it has sometimes been named as Japan's first shrine.

1 History
2 Religious significance
3 Architecture
4 National treasures
- 4.1 Important Cultural Assets
5 See also
6 Notes
7 References
8 External links

History

Ōmiwa Shrine's history is closely related to Mount Miwa and the religious practices surrounding the mountain. In the early Kofun period, Yamato kings and leaders had shifted their attention to kami worship on Mount Miwa, and Ōmiwa Shrine was the major institution for this branch of worship.^[4] The style of Shinto surrounding Miwa became later known as Miwa Shinto, and is set apart from previous practices by a more structured theological philosophy.

The shrine became the object of Imperial patronage during the early Heian period.^[5] In 965, Emperor Murakami ordered that Imperial messengers be sent to report important events to the guardian kami of Japan. These heihaku were initially presented to 16 shrines, including the Ōmiwa Shrine.^[6]

From 1871 through 1946, the Ōmiwa Shrine was officially designated one of the Kanpei-taisha (官幣大社^?), meaning that it stood in the first rank among government supported shrines. ^[7]

Religious significance

Main article: Mount Miwa

The Ōmiwa Shrine is directly linked to Mount Miwa in that the mountain is the shrine's shintai, or "kami-body", instead of a building housing a "kami-body". This type of mountain worship (shintai-zan) is found in the earliest forms of Shinto, and has also been employed at Suwa Shrine in Nagano, and formerly at Isonokami Shrine in Nara and Munakata Shrine in Fukuoka.

According to the chronicle Nihon Shoki, Emperor Sujin appealed to Mount Miwa's kami when Japan was crippled by plague. In response, the kami Ōmononushi demanded rituals be performed for him at Mount Miwa. He then demanded that the rites be led by Ōtata Neko, his half-kami, half-human son born from the union with a woman of the Miwa clan. Ōtata Neko performed the rites to satisfaction, and the plague subsided. A building dedicated to Ōtata Neko was later erected in his honor.

A legendary white snake is said to live in around the shrine, and is supposedly one of the kami worshipped there. Indeed, snakes and the snake cult figures importantly in the myths surrounding Mount Miwa as well as early Shinto in general.

Architecture

Second torii leading to the inner sanctuary

Ōmiwa Shrine is situated in a quiet forest, and built directly in front of Mount Miwa. An ancient Japanese cedar tree (Cryptomeria) can be found on shrine compound, and is considered sacred. The mountain itself serves as the honden, or main hall, instead of a man-made building.

Borromean rings motif

Decorations in the form of Borromean rings are found throughout the shrine's buildings. This ornamentation symbolizes the three rings, as "Miwa" is written with the kanji for "three" (三) and "ring" (輪).

The buildings at Ōmiwa Shrine are a mix of structures built from ancient times to the Edo period.

Ōmiwa Shrine is one of few shrines that has a "Triple-torii" (mitsutorii) on its grounds.

National treasures

Important Cultural Assets

The entire shrine compound
The 17th century haiden, or prayer hall, built with cypress bark roofing
The "Triple-torii" (mitsutorii)
The shinden dedicated to Ōtata Neko.

Suit of bronze armor, lacquered red
A copy of the Book of Zhou, scroll number 19.

Notes

^ Richard, Ponsonby-Fane. (1964) Visiting Famous Shrines in Japan, pp. 252-286.
^ (English) Ōmiwa Shrine site
^ Tamura, page 21
^ Brown (1993), 116-117.
^ Breen, John et al. (2000). Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami, pp. 74-75.
^ Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1962). Studies in Shinto and Shrines, pp. 116-117.
^ Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1959). The Imperial House of Japan, pp. 124.

References

Aston, William George (2005). Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697. Boston: Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 0804836744.
Breen, John and Mark Teeuwen. (2000). Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 10-ISBN 0-824-82363-X; 13-ISBN 978-0-824-82363-4
Brown, Delmer M. (1993). Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 1. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521223520.
Kidder, Jonathan Edward (2007). Himiko and Japan's elusive chiefdom of Yamatai: archaeology, history, and mythology. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0824830350.
Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1962). Studies in Shinto and Shrines. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. OCLC 399449
____________. (1959). The Imperial House of Japan. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. OCLC 194887
____________. (1964). Visiting Famous Shrines in Japan. Kyoto: Ponsonby-Fane Memorial Society. OCLC 1030156

Tamura, Yoshiro (2000). "The Birth of the Japanese nation in". Japanese Buddhism - A Cultural History (First Edition ed.). Tokyo: Kosei Publishing Company. p. 232 pages. ISBN 4-333-01684-3.