InJapan, achinjusha (鎮守社•鎮社; or tutelaryshrine) is aShinto shrine which enshrines a tutelarykami (鎮守神,chinjugami); that is, a patron spirit that protects a given area, village, building or aBuddhist temple.[1][2][3] The Imperial Palace has its own tutelary shrine dedicated to the 21 guardian gods ofIse Shrine. Tutelary shrines are usually very small, but there is a range in size, and the greatHiyoshi Taisha for example isEnryaku-ji's tutelary shrine.[4] The tutelary shrine of a temple or the complex the two together form are sometimes called a temple-shrine (寺社,jisha).[5][6] If a tutelary shrine is calledchinju-dō, it is the tutelary shrine of a Buddhist temple.[3] Even in that case, however, the shrine retains its distinctivearchitecture.
Achinjugami is thetutelary kami of a specific area or building, as for example a village or a Buddhist temple. The term today is asynonym ofujigami (clan's tutelary ancestor) andubusuna (産土神,lit. native place kami); however, the three words had originally a different meaning.[7] While the first refers to a clan's ancestor and the second to the tutelarykami of one's birthplace,chinjugami is the tutelarykami of a given place, highly respected and venerated.[7] The concepts were however sufficiently close to fuse together with the passing of time.[7]
The frequent presence, even today, of aShinto shrine near or in a Buddhist temple has its roots in the efforts made by the Japanese to reconcile localkami worship with importedBuddhism. (For details, see articleShinbutsu shūgō.)
One of the first such efforts was made during theNara period (710–794) with the founding of so-calledshrine-temples (jingū-ji), complexes consisting of a shrine dedicated to somekami and of a Buddhist temple.[8][9] Thissyncretic solution is believed to have its roots in the Chineseqié-lán-shen (garanjin (伽藍神,lit. kami of thegaran) in Japanese), tutelary gods of Chinese temples.[2]
The reason for Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines to be constructed together was the belief thatkami, like humans, needed salvation through the power ofBuddha.[9]Kami were then thought to be subject tokarma and reincarnation like human beings, and early Buddhist stories tell how the task of helping sufferingkami was assumed by wandering monks.[10] A localkami would appear in a dream to the monk, telling him about his suffering.[10] To improve thekami's karma through Buddhist rites and the reading ofsūtras, the monk would build a temple next to thekami's shrine.[10] Such groupings were created already in the 7th century, for example inUsa, Kyūshū,[10] wherekamiHachiman was worshiped together with Miroku Bosatsu (Maitreya) atUsa Hachiman-gū. As a result of the creation of shrine-temple complexes, many shrines that had been open-air sites became Buddhist style groupings of buildings.[11]
At the end of the same century, Hachiman was declared to be theDharma's tutelarykami and, a little later, abosatsu.[8] Shrines for him started to be built at temples (the so-called temple-shrines, orjisha), marking an important step ahead in the process of amalgamation ofkami worship and Buddhism.[8] When the great Buddha atTōdai-ji inNara was built, within the temple grounds was also erected a shrine for Hachiman, according to the legend because of a wish expressed by thekami himself.[10] After this, temples in the entire country adopted tutelarykami like Hachiman and built shrines for them.[8]
This tendency to seekami as tutelary deities was strengthened during theEdo period (1603–1868) by theterauke system. Because all shrines were by law owned and managed by a Buddhist temple, many of theirkami came to be viewed as the temple's tutelarykami.[2]
As a result, until the Meiji period (1868–1912) the vast majority of all shrines were small, had no permanent priest and belonged to a Buddhist temple.[12] With very few exceptions likeIse Shrine andIzumo Taisha, they were just part of a temple-shrine complex controlled by Buddhist clergy.[12] Because they enshrined a local and minor tutelarykami, they were called with the name of thekami followed by terms likegongen (avatar),ubusuna, ormyōjin (明神,greatkami). The termjinja (神社), now the most common, was rare.[12] Examples of this kind of pre-Meiji use areTokusō Daigongen andKanda Myōjin.
