refers to the belief in rocks as

Yorishiro A in Shinto terminology is an object capable of attracting spirits called , thus giving them a physical space to occupy during religious ceremonies. are used during ceremonies to call the for worship. The word itself literally means "approach ...

containing

Kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...

in ancient Shinto. It also refers to the rock itself, which is the object of worship.

Overview

Nature worship Nature worship also called naturism or physiolatry is any of a variety of religious, spiritual and devotional practices that focus on the worship of the nature spirits considered to be behind the natural phenomena visible throughout nature. A nat ...

(spirit worship,

animism Animism (from Latin: ' meaning 'breath, Soul, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct Spirituality, spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—Animal, animals, Plant, plants, Ro ...

), which has existed in Japan since ancient times, is a type of base faith. In Shinto rituals, gods descended from

shintai In Shinto, , or when the honorific prefix ''go''- is used, are physical objects worshipped at or near Shinto shrines as repositories in which spirits or ''kami'' reside.''Shintai'', Encyclopedia of Shinto ''Shintai'' used in Shrine Shinto (Jin ...

, a rock, and made his

yorishiro A in Shinto terminology is an object capable of attracting spirits called , thus giving them a physical space to occupy during religious ceremonies. are used during ceremonies to call the for worship. The word itself literally means "approach ...

(called

himorogi in Shinto terminology are sacred spaces or altars used to worship.Sugiyama, "Himorogi" In their simplest form, they are square areas with green bamboo or ''sakaki'' at the corners without architecture. These in turn support sacred ropes (''shim ...

) and divine power the center of the ritual. As time went on and

temples A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

, where gods were believed to be always present, became more permanent, the object of worship moved away from the body of the god and toward the shrine itself. In many cases, sacred trees and sacred stones adorned with shimenawa ropes still exist in their precincts. In addition to rock, other examples of belief in nature include the

Chinju no Mori are forests established and maintained in or around shrines (Chinjugami) in Japan, surrounding temples, Sando, and places of worship. In Ko-Shintō, the forest where the god Kanabi (Kamunabi / Kannabi) is enshrined is also called the Kamish ...

("Mori" itself refers to the shrine, and the forest is the forest itself), the "island" as an

forbidden area ''Forbidden Area'' is a 1956 Cold War thriller novel by Pat Frank. Its plot involves Soviet sleeper agents intended to sabotage the U.S. war effort, who have been trained by classical conditioning to have an American "cover identity" that they c ...

, the

Munakata Taisha is a collection of three Shinto shrines located in Munakata, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. It is the head of the approximately 6,000 Munakata shrines all over the country. Although the name Munakata Taisha refers to all three shrines—Hetsu-gū, ...

's Okinoshima of

, belief in "mountains" such as Rokko Himei Shrine and

Mount Miwa or is a mountain located in the city of Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, Japan. It has been an important religious and historical mountain in Japan, especially during its early history, and serves as a holy site in Shinto. The entire mountain is co ...

, belief in "fire", waterfall, and a wide range of weather phenomena such as wind, rain, and lightning. It is a weather phenomenon. It is said that there is another rock-related object, Iwasaka, which is a ritual site centered on a rock, but there is no actual example of this in comparison to Iwaza. However, in this case, there are no actual examples of such a site. The '' Nihonshoki'' (Chronicles of Japan) distinguishes Iwasaka from Iwaza, so it is something different from Iwasaka. In other words, a banjiki is the same as a

stone circle A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The be ...

, which is an ancient ruin made of stones arranged in a ring, and is a ritual ruin that shows the "divine realm" by artificially assembling boundary stones to form a boundary to preserve it as a sacred and clean place. Nowadays, trees and forests such as sacred trees and broad-leaved evergreen trees such as

sakaki ''Cleyera japonica'' (sakaki) is a flowering evergreen tree native to warm areas of Japan, Taiwan, China, Myanmar, Nepal, and northern India (Min and Bartholomew 2015). It can reach a height of 10 m. The leaves are 6–10 cm long, smooth, ...

, which are used as

in rituals, are called HIMON-belief or HIMON-za, while mountains, stones, and rocks are called BANZA when they are used as Yorishiro. Some of the megaliths along the Kaido have

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

carved on them, and some have

Legend A legend is a Folklore genre, genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human valu ...

s attached to them, such as the famous samurai who connected

Horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...

s. There is a research group (Iwakura Gakkai) that claims that the belief in rock formations and megaliths, including these, can be traced back to the

Jōmon period The is the time in Japanese history, traditionally dated between 6,000–300 BCE, during which Japan was inhabited by a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united through a common Jōmon culture, which reached a c ...

, and that there are also artificially arranged rock formations, and that their arrangement represents certain figures, directions, or the shape of the

Constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

. In contrast to this view, the Iwakura Society points out that it was not until the

Kofun period The is an era in the history of Japan from about 300 to 538 AD (the date of the introduction of Buddhism), following the Yayoi period. The Kofun and the subsequent Asuka periods are sometimes collectively called the Yamato period. This period is ...

that the Iwakura ritual began. In addition, there is criticism of the theory that megaliths are artifacts.

Gallery

File:Yagyu-Yamaguchi-jinja, Tateiwa-jinja, iwakura.jpg, Tachiban Shrine in the precincts of Yashifun Yamaguchi Shrine (Nara City, Nara Prefecture) File:Yoki-tenman-jinja Shrine - Iwakura.jpg, Yoiki Tenma Shrine (Sakurai City, Nara Prefecture) File:Omiwa-jinja Iwakura.jpg, Okami Shrine (Sakurai City, Nara Prefecture)

References

{{Reflist

External links

イワクラ（磐座）学会
Sacred rocks Animism Shinto Shinto religious objects

Overview

Gallery

See also

References

External links