A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home , looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in paganism as well as in folklore across many parts of the world.
101-424: Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity – typically a goddess – often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, such as the ancient Greek Hestia . The second type of household deity is not one singular deity but a type or species of animistic , which usually has lesser powers than major deities. This type
202-788: A himorogi , or an object believed to be capable of attracting spirits, called a yorishiro , which can also serve as direct bonds to a kami . There may be a haiden ( 拝殿 , meaning: "hall of worship") and other structures as well. Although only one word ("shrine") is used in English, in Japanese, Shinto shrines may carry any one of many different, non-equivalent names like gongen , -gū , jinja , jingū , mori , myōjin , -sha , taisha , ubusuna or yashiro . Miniature shrines ( hokora ) can occasionally be found on roadsides. Large shrines sometimes have on their precincts miniature shrines, sessha ( 摂社 ) or massha ( 末社 ) . Mikoshi ,
303-652: A kami is believed to reside in them. Shintai are not themselves part of kami , but rather just symbolic repositories which make them accessible to human beings for worship; the kami inhabits them. Shintai are also of necessity yorishiro , that is objects by their very nature capable of attracting kami . The most common shintai are objects like mirrors, swords, jewels (for example comma-shaped stones called magatama ), gohei (wands used during religious rites), and sculptures of kami called shinzō ( 神像 ) , but they can be also natural objects such as rocks, mountains, trees, and waterfalls. Mountains were among
404-452: A building separate from the city's council hall and adjoining theatre. A temple to Hestia was in Andros . Prospective founders of city-states and colonies sought approval and guidance not only of their "mother city" (represented by Hestia) but of Apollo , through one or another of his various oracles. He acted as consulting archegetes (founder) at Delphi . Among his various functions, he
505-731: A central hearth. Likewise, the hearth of the later Greek prytaneum was the community and government's ritual and secular focus. Hestia's naming thus makes her a personification of the hearth and its fire, a symbol of society and family, also denoting authority and kingship. Hestia is a goddess of the first Olympian generation. She is the eldest daughter of the Titans Rhea and Cronus , and sister to Demeter , Hades , Hera , Poseidon , and Zeus . Immediately after their birth, starting with Hestia, Cronus swallowed each of them, but their mother deceived Cronus and helped Zeus escape. Zeus forced Cronus to disgorge his siblings and led them in
606-501: A cult of human ancestors, specially of tribal chiefs and clan-heroes: this is Manism or Ancestor Worship proper, culminating in hero worship. ... it is to be noted that the characteristics pertaining to a particular clan or tribal community, which mark ancestor worship, will have fallen very much to the background if they can be at all inferred among the Celts; the relations emphasised will be found pertaining to mythologic concepts and to
707-493: A cultural import which provided much of Shinto architecture's vocabulary. The rōmon ( 楼門 , tower gate ) , the haiden , the kairō ( 回廊 , corridor ) , the tōrō , or stone lantern, and the komainu , or lion dogs, are all elements borrowed from Buddhism. Until the Meiji period (1868–1912), shrines as they exist today were rare. With very few exceptions like Ise Grand Shrine and Izumo Taisha , they were just
808-568: A culture's development. He also coined the term animism . Tylor disagreed with Herbert Spencer , another founder of anthropology, as well as of sociology, about the innateness of the human tendency towards animistic explanations, but both agreed that ancestor worship was the root of religion and that domestic deities were survivals from such an early stage. In contradistinction to both Herbert Spencer and Edward Burnett Tylor , who defended theories of animistic origins of ancestor worship, Émile Durkheim saw its genesis in totemism . This distinction
909-430: A divine personification of Rome's "public", domestic, and colonial hearths, binding Romans together within a form of extended family. The similarity of names between Hestia and Vesta is, however, misleading: "The relationship hestia-histie-Vesta cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European linguistics; borrowings from a third language must also be involved", according to Walter Burkert . Herodotus equates Hestia with
1010-544: A great oath, that she would remain a virgin for all time and never marry. In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, Aphrodite (goddess of sex and love) has "no power" over Hestia. At Athens, "in Plato's time", notes Kenneth Dorter "there was a discrepancy in the list of the twelve chief gods , as to whether Hestia or Dionysus was included with the other eleven. The altar to them at the agora, for example, included Hestia, but
1111-651: A high deity. Jingū ( 神宮 ) is a shrine of particularly high status that has a deep relationship with the Imperial household or enshrines an Emperor, as for example in the case of the Ise Jingū and the Meiji Jingū. The name Jingū alone, can refer only to the Ise Jingū, whose official name is just "Jingū". It is a formulation close to jinja ( 神社 ) with the character Sha ( 社 ) being replaced with gū ( 宮 ) , emphasizing its high rank Miya ( 宮 )
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#17328015824971212-462: A likelihood suggested by the good points which in many respects survive in their character, their virtues being turned into vices, and, contrariwise, their vices into virtues, as good or ill fortune befell the household and its appurtenances. Is not the bowl of milk placed for the Brownie in the corner of the room a survival of the drink-offering of wine which was poured out before the household gods of
1313-458: A list kept at the shrine and declares him or her a "family child" (氏子 ujiko). After death an ujiko becomes a "family spirit", or "family kami " (氏神 ujigami). Many Japanese houses still have a shrine ( kamidana , kami shelf) where offerings are made to ancestral kami, as well as to other kami. Edward Burnett Tylor , one of the main founders of the discipline of cultural anthropology, spoke of survivals , vestiges of earlier evolutionary stages in
1414-448: A part of a temple-shrine complex controlled by Buddhist clergy. These complexes were called jingū-ji ( 神宮寺 , literally: "shrine temple") , places of worship composed of a Buddhist temple and of a shrine dedicated to a local kami . The complexes were born when a temple was erected next to a shrine to help its kami with its karmic problems. At the time, kami were thought to be also subjected to karma , and therefore in need of
1515-460: A rock or waterfall housing a local kami ), or of an artificial one, which must therefore be procured or made to the purpose. An example of the first case are the Nachi Falls , worshiped at Hiryū Shrine near Kumano Nachi Taisha and believed to be inhabited by a kami called Hiryū Gongen . The first duty of a shrine is to house and protect its shintai and the kami which inhabits it. If
1616-552: A salvation only Buddhism could provide. Having first appeared during the Nara period (710–794), the jingū-ji remained common for over a millennium until, with few exceptions, they were destroyed in compliance with the new policies of the Meiji administration in 1868. The Shinto shrine went through a massive change when the Meiji administration promulgated a new policy of separation of kami and foreign Buddhas ( shinbutsu bunri ) with
1717-424: A shrine has more than one building, the one containing the shintai is called honden ; because it is meant for the exclusive use of the kami , it is always closed to the public and is not used for prayer or religious ceremonies. The shintai leaves the honden only during festivals ( matsuri ), when it is put in portable shrines ( mikoshi ) and carried around the streets among the faithful. The portable shrine
1818-413: A shrine to another: the divided spirit's new location can be a privately owned object or an individual's house. The kanjō process was of fundamental importance in the creation of all of Japan's shrine networks ( Inari shrines , Hachiman shrines , etc.). The shake (社家) are families and the former social class that dominated Shinto shrines through hereditary positions within a shrine. The social class
1919-493: A small shrine ( chinjusha ) dedicated to its Shinto tutelary kami , and vice versa Buddhist figures (e.g. goddess Kannon ) are revered in Shinto shrines. The defining features of a shrine are the kami it enshrines and the shintai (or go-shintai if the honorific prefix go- is used) that houses it. While the name literally means "body of a kami", shintai are physical objects worshiped at or near Shinto shrines because
2020-533: A war against their father and the other Titans. As "first to be devoured ... and the last to be yielded up again", Hestia is thus both the eldest and youngest daughter; this mythic inversion is found in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (700 BC). Zeus assigned Hestia a duty to feed and maintain the fires of the Olympian hearth with the fatty, combustible portions of animal sacrifices to the gods. Wherever food
2121-571: Is a Byzantine tapestry , made in Egypt during the 6th century AD. It is a late and very rare representation of the goddess, whom it identifies in Greek as Hestia Polyolbos ; ( Greek : Ἑστία Πολύολβος "Hestia full of Blessings"). Its history and symbolism are discussed in Friedlander (1945). Shinto shrine A Shinto shrine ( 神社 , jinja , archaic: shinsha , meaning: "kami shrine")
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#17328015824972222-489: Is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") one or more kami , the deities of the Shinto religion. The honden (本殿, meaning: "main hall") is where a shrine's patron kami is/are enshrined. The honden may be absent in cases where a shrine stands on or near a sacred mountain, tree, or other object which can be worshipped directly or in cases where a shrine possesses either an altar-like structure, called
2323-458: Is also used as a suffix -sha or sometimes -ja ( 社 ) , as in Shinmei-sha or Tenjin-ja , indicates a minor shrine that has received through the kanjō process a kami from a more important one. A mori ( 杜 ) is a place where a kami is present. It can therefore be a shrine and, in fact, the characters 神社, 社 and 杜 can all be read "mori" ("grove"). This reading reflects the fact
2424-423: Is an operation called kanjō , a propagation process through which a kami is invited to a new location and there re-enshrined. The new shrine is administered completely independent from the one it originated from. However, other transfer mechanisms exist. In Ise Grand Shrine's case, for example, its network of Shinmei shrines (from Shinmei, 神明; another name for Amaterasu) grew due to two concurrent causes. During
2525-501: Is believed to serve the mountain on which it stands—images or objects are therefore unnecessary. For the same reason, it has a worship hall, a haiden ( 拝殿 ) , but no place to house the kami , called shinden ( 神殿 ) . Archeology confirms that, during the Yayoi period, the most common shintai ( 神体 ) (a yorishiro actually housing the enshrined kami ) in the earliest shrines were nearby mountain peaks that supplied stream water to
2626-650: Is exactly the same being as the Danish Nis, and Scottish Brownie, and English Hobgoblin. [b] He performs the very same services for the family to whom he attaches himself. ... The Nis, Kobold, or Goblin, appears in Scotland under the name of Brownie. MacMichael elaborated his views on the folkloric belief complex as follows: What are our elves and fairies, goblins, nisses, brownies, and pixies but latter-day survivals of arkite ancestor worship? Brownies and pixies were probably invariably of good character, originally,
2727-511: Is its best extant example. In Shinto it has played a particularly significant role in preserving ancient architectural styles. Izumo Taisha , Sumiyoshi Taisha , and Nishina Shinmei Shrine each represent a different style whose origin is believed to predate Buddhism in Japan. These three styles are known respectively as taisha-zukuri , sumiyoshi-zukuri , and shinmei-zukuri . Shrines show various influences, particularly that of Buddhism,
2828-416: Is somewhat academic since totemism may be regarded as a particularized manifestation of animism, and a synthesis of the two positions was attempted by Sigmund Freud . In Freud's Totem and Taboo , both totem and taboo are outward expressions or manifestations of the same psychological tendency, a concept which is complementary to, or which rather reconciles, the apparent conflict. Freud preferred to emphasize
2929-558: Is the Tōshō-gū shrines erected to enshrine Tokugawa Ieyasu , or the many shrines dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane , like Kitano Tenman-gū . Often the shrines which were most significant historically do not lie in a former center of power like Kyoto , Nara , or Kamakura . For example, Ise Grand Shrine , the Imperial household 's family shrine, is in Mie prefecture . Izumo-taisha , one of
3030-481: Is the kunyomi of -gū ( 宮 ) and indicates a shrine enshrining a special kami or a member of the Imperial household like the Empress, but there are many examples in which it is used simply as a tradition. During the period of state regulation, many -miya names were changed to jinja . A taisha ( 大社 ) (the characters are also read ōyashiro ) is literally a "great shrine" that was classified as such under
3131-465: Is used to physically protect the shintai and to hide it from sight. Often the opening of a new shrine will require the ritual division of a kami and the transferring of one of the two resulting spirits to the new location, where it will animate the shintai . This process is called kanjō , and the divided spirits bunrei ( 分霊 , literally: "divided spirit") , go-bunrei ( 御分霊 ) , or wakemitama ( 分霊 ) . This process of propagation, described by
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3232-404: Is well known. He is usually described as attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house, and performing similar household tasks. His favorite gratification was milk and honey. George Henderson elaborated on the presumed origin of ancestor worship in animism : The second phase of this stage of thought [Animism] would be
3333-464: Is your portion and your right. For without you mortals hold no banquet, – where one does not duly pour sweet wine in offering to Hestia both first and last. And you, slayer of Argus ( an epithet of Hermes ), Son of Zeus and Maia, the messenger of the blessed gods, bearer of the goldenrod, the giver of good, be favorable and help us, you and Hestia, the worshipful and dear. Come and dwell in this glorious house in friendship together; for you two, well knowing
3434-614: The Acropolis , Livia , and Julia ", and of "Hestia Romain" ("Roman Hestia", thus "The Roman Hearth" or Vesta). At Delos , a priest served "Hestia the Athenian Demos " (the people or state) "and Roma ". An eminent citizen of Carian Stratoniceia described himself as a priest of Hestia and several other deities, as well as holding several civic offices. Hestia's political and civic functions are further evidenced by her very numerous privately funded dedications at civic sites, and
3535-614: The Engi-shiki (延喜式, literally: "Procedures of the Engi Era") was promulgated in fifty volumes. This, the first formal codification of Shinto rites and Norito (liturgies and prayers) to survive, became the basis for all subsequent Shinto liturgical practice and efforts. In addition to the first ten volumes of this fifty volume work, which concerned worship and the Department of Worship , sections in subsequent volumes addressing
3636-715: The Gigantomachy as she is the one who must keep the home fires burning when the other gods are away. Nevertheless, her possible participation in the fight against the Giants is evidenced from an inscription on the northern frieze of the Siphnian Treasury in Delphi ; Brinkmann (1985) suggests that the letter tracings of one of the two goddesses right next to Hephaestus be restored as "Hestia", although other possible candidates include Demeter and Persephone , or two of
3737-576: The Industrial Revolution threatened to erase most of these minor deities until the advent of romantic nationalism rehabilitated them and embellished them into objects of literary curiosity in the 19th century. Since the 20th century, this literature has been mined for characters for role-playing games, video games, and other fantasy personae , not infrequently invested with invented traits and hierarchies somewhat different from their mythological and folkloric roots. The general dynamics of
3838-714: The Japanese Middle Ages , shrines started being called with the name gongen ( 権現 ) , a term of Buddhist origin. For example, in Eastern Japan there are still many Hakusan shrines where the shrine itself is called gongen . Because it represents the application of Buddhist terminology to Shinto kami , its use was legally abolished by the Meiji government with the Shinto and Buddhism Separation Order ( 神仏判然令 , Shin-butsu Hanzenrei ) , and shrines began to be called jinja . Ancestors are kami to be worshipped. Yayoi period village councils sought
3939-630: The Kami and Buddhas Separation Order ( 神仏判然令 , Shinbutsu Hanzenrei ) . This event triggered the haibutsu kishaku , a violent anti-Buddhist movement which in the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate and during the Meiji Restoration caused the forcible closure of thousands of Buddhist temples, the confiscation of their land, the forced return to lay life of monks, and the destruction of books, statues and other Buddhist property. Until
4040-461: The Man'yōshū . Sha ( 社 ) itself was not an initially secular term. In Chinese it alone historically could refer to Tudigong , or soil gods, a kind of tutelary deity seen as subordinate to City Gods . Such deities are also often called ( 社神 ; shèshén ), or the same characters in the reverse order. Its Kunyomi reading Yashiro ( 社 ) is a generic term for shinto shrine like jinja . It
4141-549: The Ministry of Ceremonies (治部省) and the Ministry of the Imperial Household (宮内省) regulated Shinto worship and contained liturgical rites and regulation. In 1970, Felicia Gressitt Brock published a two-volume annotated English language translation of the first ten volumes with an introduction entitled Engi-shiki; procedures of the Engi Era . The arrival of Buddhism in Japan in around the sixth century introduced
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4242-497: The magi suggested. The accidental or negligent extinction of a domestic hearth fire represented a failure of domestic and religious care for the family; failure to maintain Hestia's public fire in her temple or shrine was a breach of duty to the broad community. A hearth fire might be deliberately, ritually extinguished at need; but its lighting should be accompanied by rituals of completion, purification, and renewal, comparable with
4343-571: The teraphim of the Bible , often translated as "household gods" in Genesis 31:19 for example), amulets , paintings, or reliefs. They could also be found on domestic objects, such as cosmetic articles in the case of Tawaret . The more prosperous houses might have a small shrine to the household god(s); the lararium served this purpose in the case of the Romans. The gods would be treated as members of
4444-533: The 'Daijōkan' banned the application of Buddhist terminology such as gongen to Japanese kami and the veneration of Buddhist statues in shrines. The third stage consisted of the prohibition against applying the Buddhist term Daibosatsu (Great Bodhisattva ) to the syncretic kami Hachiman at the Iwashimizu Hachiman-gū and Usa Hachiman-gū shrines. In the fourth and final stage, all
4545-632: The Council Chamber, leaping onto her hearth not to save himself, but in the hope that his slayers would demonstrate their impiety by killing him there". Very few free-standing temples were dedicated to Hestia. Pausanias mentions one in Hermione and one in Sparta , the latter having an altar but no image. Xenophon 's Hellenica mentions fighting around and within Olympia 's temple of Hestia,
4646-633: The Indo-European household, in Chapter II, "The House Spirit", Section 1, he states: The belief which guided the conduct of our forefathers was ... the spirit rule of dead ancestors. In Section 2, he proceeds to elaborate: It is thus certain that the worship of deceased ancestors is a vera causa , and not a mere hypothesis. ... In the other European nations, the Slavs, the Teutons, and
4747-475: The Japanese words for "mountain" and "forest", which can also mean "shrine". Many shrines have on their grounds one of the original great yorishiro : a big tree, surrounded by a sacred rope called shimenawa ( 標縄・注連縄・七五三縄 ) . The first buildings at places dedicated to worship were hut-like structures built to house some yorishiro . A trace of this origin can be found in the term hokura ( 神庫 ) , "deity storehouse", which evolved into hokora (written with
4848-513: The Kelts, the House Spirit appears with no less distinctness. ... [T]he existence of that worship does not admit of doubt. ... The House Spirits had a multitude of other names which it is needless here to enumerate, but all of which are more or less expressive of their friendly relations with man. ... In [England] ... [h]e is the Brownie. ... In Scotland this same Brownie
4949-793: The Nature-Myth. For, as modifications and transitions in behalf are constant, ancestor worship gets partly transcended. But in Manism the guardian spirit has its specific influence on the tribal consciousness. I recollect Aoibhell of Craig Liath, the guardian spirit of the Dal Caiss , mentioned in the narrative concerning Brian Boru in the Wars of the Gaedhel and the Gall; there is also Mag Molach or Hairy Hand, and Bodach An Duin of Rothiemurchus, as well as
5050-650: The Robin Goodfellow (q.v.) of the English and the Kobold of the Germans is conspicuous, and the Roman Lar is also suggested by this suspicion. William Edward Hearn , a noted classicist and jurist, traced the origin of domestic deities from the earliest stages as an expression of animism, a belief system thought to have existed also in the neolithic and the forerunner of Indo-European religion. In his analysis of
5151-601: The Romans? Demonstrating that this evolution and functional equivalence has generally come to be accepted and that their nature is indeed that proposed by Grimm, one may refer to the early twentieth century New International Encyclopaedia : The term fairy, however, is also loosely used to include other beings of a similar character like the brownie, elf, fay, gnome, goblin, kobold, pixy, puck, salamander, sprite, sylph, troll and undine. ... Fairy lore contains likewise certain elements of ancestor-worship, of mythology, and of older religious beliefs. and also The resemblance to
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#17328015824975252-527: The administrative rather than religious titles used by the lay-officials involved in her civic cults. Every private and public hearth was regarded as a sanctuary of the goddess, and a portion of the sacrifices, to whatever divinity they were offered, belonged to her. Aeschines , On the Embassy , declares that "the hearth of the Prytaneum was regarded as the common hearth of the state and a statue of Hestia
5353-540: The advice of ancestors and other kami , and developed instruments, yorishiro ( 依り代 ) , to evoke them. Yoshishiro means "approach substitute" and were conceived to attract the kami to allow them physical space, thus making kami accessible to human beings. Village council sessions were held in quiet spots in the mountains or in forests near great trees or other natural objects that served as yorishiro . These sacred places and their yorishiro gradually evolved into today's shrines, whose origins can be still seen in
5454-430: The concept of a permanent shrine. A great number of Buddhist temples were built next to existing shrines in mixed complexes called jingū-ji ( 神宮寺 , literally: "shrine temple") to help priesthood deal with local kami , making those shrines permanent. Some time in their evolution, the word miya ( 宮 ) , meaning "palace", came into use indicating that shrines had by then become the imposing structures of today. Once
5555-466: The defrocked bettō and shasō were told to become "shrine priests" ( kannushi ) and return to their shrines. Monks of the Nichiren sect were told not to refer to some deities as kami . After a short period in which it enjoyed popular favor, the process of separation of Buddhas and kami however stalled and is still only partially completed. To this day, almost all Buddhist temples in Japan have
5656-531: The early Roman Imperial era, when Sparta offers several examples of women with the priestly title "Hestia"; Chalcis offers one, a daughter of the local elite. Existing civic cults to Hestia probably served as stock for the grafting of Greek ruler-cult to the Roman emperor, the Imperial family, and Rome itself. In Athens, a small seating section at the Theatre of Dionysus was reserved for priesthoods of "Hestia on
5757-515: The east frieze of the Parthenon had Dionysus instead." However, the hearth was immovable, and "there is no story of Hestia's "ever having been removed from her fixed abode". Burkert remarks that "Since the hearth is immovable Hestia is unable to take part even in the procession of the gods, let alone the other antics of the Olympians". Traditionally, Hestia is absent from ancient depictions of
5858-617: The end of Edo period , local kami beliefs and Buddhism were intimately connected in what was called shinbutsu shūgō (神仏習合), up to the point where even the same buildings were used as both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. After the law, the two would be forcibly separated. This was done in several stages. At first an order issued by the Jingijimuka in April 1868 ordered the defrocking of shasō and bettō (shrine monks performing Buddhist rites at Shinto shrines). A few days later,
5959-469: The family and invited to join in meals or be given offerings of food and drink . In ancient and modern religions, a god would preside over the home. Certain species, or types, of household deities existed. An example of this was the Roman Lares. Many European cultures retained house spirits into the modern period. Some examples of these include: Although the cosmic status of household deities
6060-400: The fire with a prayer addressed to all the powers, then carved the meat into seven equal portions: "one he set aside, lifting up a prayer to the forest nymphs and Hermes , Maia 's son." Hestia is identified with the hearth as a physical object, and the abstractions of community and domesticity, in contrast to the fire of the forge employed in blacksmithing and metalworking, the province of
6161-510: The first offering at every domestic sacrifice. In the public domain, the hearth of the prytaneum functioned as her official sanctuary. Whenever a new colony was established, a flame from Hestia's public hearth in the mother city would be carried to the new settlement . The goddess Vesta is her Roman equivalent . Hestia's name means "hearth, fireplace, altar". This stems from the PIE root *wes , "burn" (ultimately from *h₂wes- "dwell, pass
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#17328015824976262-495: The first permanent shrines were built, Shinto revealed a strong tendency to resist architectural change, a tendency which manifested itself in the so-called shikinen sengū-sai ( 式年遷宮祭 ) , the tradition of rebuilding shrines faithfully at regular intervals adhering strictly to their original design. This custom is the reason ancient styles have been replicated throughout the centuries to the present day, remaining more or less intact. Ise Grand Shrine , still rebuilt every 20 years,
6363-455: The first shrines were huts built to house some yorishiro . -gū ( 宮 ) indicates a shrine enshrining an imperial prince, but there are many examples in which it is used simply as a tradition. The word gū ( 宮 ) often found at the end of names of shrines such as Hachimangu , Tenmangū , or Jingu ( 神宮 ) comes from the Chinese ( 宮 ; gong ) meaning palace or a temple to
6464-402: The first shrines were simply sacred groves or forests where kami were present. Hokora / hokura ( 神庫 ) is an extremely small shrine of the kind one finds for example along country roads. The term Hokora ( 祠 ) , believed to have been one of the first Japanese words for Shinto shrine, evolved from hokura ( 神庫 ) , literally meaning "kami repository", a fact that seems to indicate that
6565-430: The first, and are still among the most important, shintai , and are worshiped at several famous shrines. A mountain believed to house a kami , as for example Mount Fuji or Mount Miwa , is called a shintai-zan ( 神体山 ) . In the case of a man-made shintai , a kami must be invited to reside in it. The founding of a new shrine requires the presence of either a pre-existing, naturally occurring shintai (for example
6666-423: The god Hephaestus. Portrayals of her are rare and seldom secure. In classical Greek art, she is occasionally depicted as a woman simply and modestly cloaked in a head veil. At times, she is shown with a staff in hand or by a large fire. She sits on a plain wooden throne with a white woolen cushion. Her associated sacrificial animal was a domestic pig. Her Roman equivalent is Vesta ; Vesta has similar functions as
6767-409: The good kindly lares were often held to be manes or souls of departed ancestors. So in our German superstition we find instances of souls becoming homesprites or kobolds , and still oftener is there a connexion between unquiet spirits and spectres. To underscore the equivalence of brownie, kobold, and goblin, consider the words of the English historian and folklorist Thomas Keightley : The Kobold
6868-453: The hereditary succession continues to present day. The Unicode character representing a Shinto shrine (for example, on maps ) is U+26E9 ⛩ SHINTO SHRINE . Jinja ( 神社 ) is the most general name for shrine. Any place that owns a honden ( 本殿 ) is a jinja . These two characters used to be read either "kamu-tsu-yashiro" or "mori" in kunyomi , both meaning "kami grove". Both readings can be found for example in
6969-670: The high ranking Scythian deity Tabiti . Procopius equates her with the Zoroastrian holy fire ( atar ) of the Sasanians in Adhur Gushnasp . To Vesta is attributed one more story not found in Greek tradition by the Roman poet Ovid in his poem Fasti , where during a feast of the gods Vesta is nearly raped in her sleep by the god Priapus , and only avoids this fate when a donkey cries out, alerting Vesta and prompting
7070-405: The leading woman of the household, although sometimes to a man. Hestia's rites at the hearths of public buildings were usually led by holders of civil office; Dionysius of Halicarnassus testifies that the prytaneum of a Greek state or community was sacred to Hestia, who was served by the most powerful state officials. However, evidence of her dedicant priesthood is extremely rare. Most stems from
7171-487: The lord Apollo, the Far-shooter at goodly Pytho , with soft oil dripping ever from your locks, come now into this house, come, having one mind with Zeus the all-wise: draw near, and withal bestow grace upon my song. Homeric Hymn 29, To Hestia invokes Hestia and Hermes: Hestia, in the high dwellings of all, both deathless gods and men who walk on earth, you have gained an everlasting abode and highest honor: glorious
7272-646: The major pagan pantheons . Elements of the practice can be seen even today, with Christian accretions, where statues to various saints (such as St. Francis ) protect gardens and grottos. Even the gargoyles found on older churches could be viewed as guardians partitioning a sacred space. For centuries, Christianity fought a mop-up war against these lingering minor pagan deities, but they proved tenacious. For example, Martin Luther 's Tischreden have numerous – quite serious – references to dealing with kobolds . Eventually, rationalism and
7373-401: The more familiar belief in the Brownie which renders offices of help in some houses,—a feeble survival of early phases of cult. Domestic or hearth goddesses from various mythologies include: Hestia In ancient Greek religion and mythology , Hestia ( / ˈ h ɛ s t i ə , ˈ h ɛ s tʃ ə / ; Ancient Greek : Ἑστία , lit. 'hearth, fireplace, altar') is
7474-422: The night, stay"). It thus refers to the oikos : domestic life, home, household, house, or family. Burkert states that an "early form of the temple is the hearth house; the early temples at Dreros and Prinias on Crete are of this type as indeed is the temple of Apollo at Delphi which always had its inner hestia ". The Mycenaean great hall ( megaron ), like Homer 's hall of Odysseus at Ithaca , had
7575-424: The noble actions of men, aid on their wisdom and their strength. Hail, Daughter of Cronos, and you also, Hermes, bearer of the goldenrod! Now I will remember you and another song also. Bacchylides Ode 14b, For Aristoteles of Larisa : Golden-throned Hestia ( Ἐστία χρυσόθρον᾽ ), you who increase the great prosperity of the rich Agathocleadae, seated in the midst of city streets near the fragrant river Peneius in
7676-573: The number of shrines at 79,467, mostly affiliated with the Association of Shinto Shrines ( 神社本庁 ) . Some shrines, such as the Yasukuni Shrine , are totally independent of any outside authority. The number of Shinto shrines in Japan is estimated to be around 100,000. Since ancient times, the Shake (社家) families dominated Shinto shrines through hereditary positions, and at some shrines
7777-537: The old system of shrine ranking, the shakaku ( 社格 ) , abolished in 1946. Many shrines carrying that shōgō adopted it only after the war. Chinjusha ( 鎮守社•鎮社 , or tutelary shrine ) comes from Chinju written as 鎮守 or sometimes just 鎮. meaning Guardian, and Sha ( 社 ) Setsumatsusha ( 摂末社 ) is a combination of two words Sessha ( 摂社 , auxiliary shrine ) and massha ( 末社 , undershrine ) . They are also called eda-miya ( 枝宮 , branch shrines ) which contains Miya ( 宮 ) During
7878-488: The oldest and most revered shrines in Japan, is in Shimane Prefecture . This is because their location is that of a traditionally important kami , and not that of temporal institutions. Some shrines exist only in one locality, while others are at the head of a network of branch shrines ( 分社 , bunsha ) . The spreading of a kami can be evoked by one or more of several different mechanisms. The typical one
7979-560: The origin and development of household deities over a considerable span may be traced and exemplified by the historically attested origins and current practices of the Shinto belief system in Japan. As the Japanologist Lafcadio Hearn put it: The real religion of Japan, the religion still professed in one form or other, by the entire nation, is that cult which has been the foundation of all civilized religion, and of all civilized society, – Ancestor-worship. Drawing
8080-403: The other gods to attack Priapus in defense of the goddess. This story is an almost word-for-word repeat of the myth of Priapus and Lotis , recounted earlier in the same book, with the difference that Lotis had to transform into a lotus tree to escape Priapus, making some scholars suggest the account where Vesta supplants Lotis only exists in order to create some cult drama. The worship of Hestia
8181-462: The palanquins which are carried on poles during festivals ( matsuri ), also enshrine kami and are therefore considered shrines. In 927 CE , the Engi-shiki ( 延喜式 , literally: "Procedures of the Engi Era") was promulgated. This work listed all of the 2,861 Shinto shrines existing at the time, and the 3,131 official-recognized and enshrined kami . In 1972, the Agency for Cultural Affairs placed
8282-489: The picture with broader strokes, he continues: Three stages of ancestor-worship are to be distinguished in the general course of religious and social evolution; and each of these finds illustration in the history of Japanese society. The first stage is that which exists before the establishment of a settled civilization, when there is yet no national ruler, and when the unit of society is the great patriarchal family, with its elders or war-chiefs for lords. Under these conditions,
8383-460: The plains where people lived. Besides Ōmiwa Shrine, another important example is Mount Nantai , a phallus -shaped mountain in Nikko which constitutes Futarasan Shrine 's shintai . The name Nantai ( 男体 ) means "man's body". The mountain provides water to the rice paddies below and has the shape of the phallic stone rods found in pre-agricultural Jōmon sites. The first known Shinto shrine
8484-506: The priests, in spite of this name, not as a division but as akin to the lighting of a candle from another already lit, leaves the original kami intact in its original place and therefore does not alter any of its properties. The resulting spirit has all the qualities of the original and is therefore "alive" and permanent. The process is used often—for example during Shinto festivals ( matsuri ) to animate temporary shrines called mikoshi . The transfer does not necessarily take place from
8585-420: The psychoanalytic implications of the reification of metaphysical forces but with particular emphasis on its familial nature. This emphasis underscores, rather than weakens, the ancestral component. European folklorist Jacob Grimm did not hesitate to equate the Roman lar familiaris to the brownie . He explains in some detail in his Deutsche Mythologie : Larva betrays its affinity to lar ..., and
8686-593: The rituals and connotations of an eternal flame and of sanctuary lamps . At the level of the polis , the hearths of Greek colonies and their mother cities were allied and sanctified through Hestia's cult. Athenaeus , in the Deipnosophistae , writes that in Naucratis the people dined in the Prytaneion on the birthday of Hestia Prytanitis. Responsibility for Hestia's domestic cult usually fell to
8787-480: The same characters 神庫) and is considered to be one of the first words for shrine. True shrines arose with the beginning of agriculture, when the need arose to attract kami to ensure good harvests. These were, however, just temporary structures built for a particular purpose, a tradition of which traces can be found in some rituals. Hints of the first shrines can still be found. Ōmiwa Shrine in Nara , for example, contains no sacred images or objects because it
8888-402: The spirits of the family-ancestors only are worshipped;—each family propitiating its own dead, and recognizing no other form of worship. As the patriarchal families, later on, become grouped into tribal clans, there grows up the custom of tribal sacrifice to the spirits of the clan-rulers;—this cult being superadded to the family-cult, and marking the second stage of ancestor-worship. Finally, with
8989-463: The three Fates . Her mythographic status as firstborn of Rhea and Cronus seems to justify the tradition in which a small offering is made to Hestia before any sacrifice ("Hestia comes first"), though this was not universal among the Greeks. In Odyssey 14 , 432–436, the loyal swineherd Eumaeus begins the feast for his master Odysseus by plucking tufts from a boar's head and throwing them into
9090-408: The union of all the clans or tribes under one supreme head, there is developed the custom of propitiating the spirits of national, rulers. This third form of the cult becomes the obligatory religion of the country; but it does not replace either of the preceding cults: the three continue to exist together. Furthermore, Whenever a child is born in Japan, a local Shinto shrine adds the child's name to
9191-519: The valleys of sheep-nurturing Thessaly . From there Aristoteles came to flourishing Cirrha , and was twice crowned, for the glory of horse-mastering Larisa ... (The rest of the ode is lost) Orphic Hymn 84 and Pindar 's 11th Nemean ode are dedicated to Hestia. In one military oath found at Acharnai , from the Sanctuary of Ares and Athena Areia, dated 350–325 BC, Hestia is called, among many others, to bear witness. The Hestia tapestry
9292-564: The virgin goddess of the hearth and the home. In myth, she is the firstborn child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea , and one of the Twelve Olympians . In Greek mythology, newborn Hestia, along with four of her five siblings, was devoured by her father Cronus, who feared being overthrown by one of his offspring. Zeus , the youngest child, escaped with his mother's help, and made his father disgorge all his siblings. Cronus
9393-535: Was abolished in 1871, but many shake families still continue hereditary succession until present day and some were appointed hereditary nobility ( Kazoku ) after the Meiji Restoration . Some of the most well-known shake families include: Those worshiped at a shrine are generally Shinto kami , but sometimes they can be Buddhist or Taoist deities, as well as others not generally considered to belong to Shinto. Some shrines were established to worship living people or figures from myths and legends . An example
9494-519: Was built in roughly 478. In 905 CE, Emperor Daigo ordered a compilation of Shinto rites and rules. Previous attempts at codification are known to have taken place, but, neither the Konin nor the Jogan Gishiki survive. Initially under the direction of Fujiwara no Tokihira , the project stalled at his death in April 909. Fujiwara no Tadahira , his brother, took charge and in 912 and in 927
9595-625: Was centered around the hearth, both domestic and civic. The hearth was essential for warmth, food preparation, and the completion of sacrificial offerings to deities. At feasts, Hestia was offered the first and last libations of wine. Pausanias writes that the Eleans sacrifice first to Hestia and then to other gods. Xenophon in Cyropaedia wrote that Cyrus the Great sacrificed first to Hestia, then to sovereign Zeus, and then to any other god that
9696-505: Was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the lares of ancient Roman religion , the gashin of Korean shamanism , and cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism . These survived Christianisation as fairy -like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish brownie and Slavic domovoy . Household deities were usually worshipped not in temples but in the home, where they would be represented by small idols (such as
9797-403: Was cooked, or an offering was burnt, she thus had her share of honor; also, in all the temples of the gods, she has a share of honor. "Among all mortals, she was chief of the goddesses". The gods Poseidon and Apollo (her brother and nephew respectively) both fell in love with Hestia and vied for her hand in marriage. But Hestia would have neither of them, and went to Zeus instead, and swore
9898-469: Was not as lofty as that of the Twelve Olympians or the Aesir , they were also jealous of their dignity and also had to be appeased with shrines and offerings, however humble. Because of their immediacy, they had arguably more influence on the day-to-day affairs of men than the remote gods did. Vestiges of their worship persisted long after Christianity and other major religions extirpated nearly every trace of
9999-404: Was patron god of colonies, architecture, constitutions and city planning. Additional patron deities might also be persuaded to support the new settlement, but without Hestia, her sacred hearth, an agora and prytaneum there could be no polis . Homeric Hymn 24, To Hestia , is an invocation of five lines, alluding to her role as an attendant to Apollo: Hestia, you who tend the holy house of
10100-439: Was supplanted by this new generation of deities; and Hestia thus became one of the Olympian gods, the new rulers of the cosmos, alongside her brothers and sisters. In spite of her status, she has little prominence in Greek mythology. Like Athena and Artemis , Hestia elected never to marry and remained an eternal virgin goddess instead, forever tending to the hearth of Olympus. As the goddess of sacrificial fire, Hestia received
10201-558: Was there, and in the senate-house there was an altar of the goddess." A temple at Ephesus was dedicated to Hestia Boulaea – Hestia "of the senate", or boule . Pausanias reports a figurative statue of Hestia in the Athenian Prytaneum, together with one of the goddess Eirene ("Peace"). Hestia offered sanctuary from persecution to those who showed her respect and would punish those who offended her. Diodorus Siculus writes that Theramenes sought asylum directly from Hestia at
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