is a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

historical term referring to the Shinto shrines with the highest rank in a

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

. Shrines of lower rank were designated , , , and so forth. ''Encyclopedia of Shinto''
''Ichi no miya''
retrieved 2013-5-14. The term gave rise to modern place names, such as the city of Ichinomiya, Aichi.

Overview

The term "Ichinomiya" literally means "first shrine" and is popularly regarded as the highest ranking shrine in each

, with the second ranking shrine referred to as the "Ninomiya" and third ranking shrine as "Sannomiya", and so on. However, there is no documentary material stipulating on how the shrines in each province are to be ranked, or even when this ranking system was created. As a general rule, all shrines designated "Ichinomiya" are of ancient origin and are listed in the ''

Engishiki The is a Japanese book about laws and customs. The major part of the writing was completed in 927. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Engi-shiki''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 178. History In 905, Emperor Daigo ordered the compilation of th ...

'' records completed in 927AD. However, the shrine selected is not necessarily the largest, or oldest, in that province, and is not necessarily one of the "Meishin Taisha", which are regarded as the most important shrines. Rather, per the ''

Ritsuryō , , is the historical law system based on the philosophies of Confucianism and Chinese Legalism in Japan. The political system in accord to Ritsuryō is called "Ritsuryō-sei" (律令制). ''Kyaku'' (格) are amendments of Ritsuryō, ''Shiki'' ...

'' legal and administrative system established in the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the c ...

, ''kokushi'' were appointed as imperial governors of each province. When the ''kokushi'' travelled from Heian-kyo to his local seat at the

provincial capital A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city that physically encompasses the g ...

, the first shrine he called upon officially in his province was the "ichinomiya". As the purpose of this visit was to announce to the local ''

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 ...

'' of his appointment to office, it was important that this shrine be dedicated to important local deities and to be located close to the provincial capital. Even after the collapse of the ''Ritsuryō'' system by the

Kamakura period The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...

, the ''ichinomiya'' continued to enjoy a certain prestige, and often after all vestiges of the provincial capital had fallen into ruins and its exact location lost, the term "Ichinomiya" was often preserved as a place name.　 Tachibana Mitsuyoshi, a noted Shinto scholar in the early

Edo Period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

visited ''ichinomiya'' nationwide for 23 years starting 1675, and wrote the record of his travels in a 13 volume account. This began the popularization of pilgrimages by the common populace to these shrines. Under State Shinto, the ''ichinomiya'' were not accorded any special status, although many were accorded high ranks under the

Modern system of ranked Shinto shrines The was an organizational aspect of the establishment of Japanese State Shinto. This system classified Shinto shrines as either official government shrines or "other" shrines. The official shrines were divided into #Imperial shrines (''kampei ...

. While as a rule-of-thumb, there can be only one "first shrine" in each province, several provinces have various rival candidates for the title. This has arisen for various reasons: relocation of the provincial capital can result in a new ''ichinomiya'' being appointed, or in some cases the merger of two provinces can result in two ''ichinomiya'' for the new province. In other cases, due to the ambiguity in the criteria for ''ichinomiya'' designation and due to conflicting ancient records, rival claimants have arisen.

References

External links

National Association of Ichinomiya website

Overview

References

External links

See also