Shintai

This article is about relics in Shinto shrines. For the treatment method of the same name and bodywork, see Shin Tai .

Throne insignia of Japan

Shintai ( Japanese 神 体 ; also 御 神 体 , go-shintai ; shintai ) is the Sino-Japanese reading of the word mitama-shiro ( 御 霊 代 ), which is also often used; also yori-shiro ( 依 り 代 ・ 依 代 ・ 憑 り 代 ・ 憑 代 ) are material objects that play the role of relics in Shinto shrines , since they are regarded as the dwelling places of the spirits or souls ( mitama ) of the kami .

The direct storage place is called shinza ( 神 座 ; literally “ Kami seat ”).

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  Gohei , wooden sticks with paper strips

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  Fuji , the most famous Shintai

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  Meoto-Iwa ( 夫婦 岩 , " husband-wife rock ")

The typical Shintai are mirrors, swords or precious stones (analogous to the throne insignia of Japan ), but in principle it can be any conceivable object, for example next to ritual bars ( gohei ) and sculptures ( kaiga or shinzō , most of these were destroyed during the Shinbutsu-Bunri period because they were too closely related to Buddhist iconography) also objects of nature such as stones, mountains ( kami-yama or shintai-zan ) and waterfalls.

Within shrines, Shintai are usually in the honden and are very carefully shielded from all human gaze. Access to them is usually forbidden to laypeople; in addition, they are usually clad in protective materials that are never completely removed, but the outermost layer of which is only replaced regularly when dissolved. If several kami are worshiped within a hone , they usually share the same Shintai. Some kami also have several original Shintai. There are then different aspects of your mitama in it.

When construction work is carried out on the honden , the Shintai is either stored in a specially designated and otherwise empty shrine ( ō-kari-den ). Otherwise, if an ō-kari-den is not available, the kami moves with the Shintai to another neighboring shrine and stays there as a guest for the duration of the construction work.

It often happens that main shrines have the mitama in their Shintai transferred to another object by the high priest there by means of lengthy and complicated rituals, although the mitama in the original Shintai does not disappear. For the transfer (which usually takes place at midnight), the new Shintai is usually stored in the heath in front of the honden and the kami is asked to move into the new Shintai.

The resulting new Shintai are called bun-rei ( 分 霊 ) and are then passed on to the branch shrines ( bun-sha ), in which the same kami is venerated as in the main shrine. But it also happens that lay people from the community of a shrine ( ujiko ) take stones or young trees from the area of ​​the shrine and use them elsewhere as a bun-rei .

Web links

Shimazu Norifumi:  "Shintai" . In: Encyclopedia of Shinto. Kokugaku-in , June 2, 2005 (English)