| Yasukuni Jinja |
The Yasukuni (the name means pacification of the country) Shrine was constructed after the Restoration to enshrine the 7,751 spirits of those loyalists who had died during battles related to the restoration. It was first known (until 1879) as and became increasingly important as a focus for patriotic loyalty from the 1890's. It was considered an unsurpassed honour to be enshrined at Yasukuni, since the souls there were paid reverence by the emperor. The Meiji emperor visited Yasukuni seven times on special occasions, the Taisho emperor paid tribute twice and the Showa emperor Hirohito visited on average once a year up to 1945. Nearly two and a half million war dead from Japan's military conflicts including the wars with China (1894-5) Russia (1904-5) and the battles of two world wars have been enshrined there, including "class A" war criminals from the second world war enshrined as late as the 1970's. A mitama-matsuri (soul festival) in honour of the war-dead is held from July 13-15th each summer with thousands of lanterns and ritual dancing. In the prewar period the cabinet visited the Yasukuni shrine twice a year at the time of the spring and autumn festivals and the shrine was supported by the Army Ministry. In the Directive the Yasukuni shrine was singled out for special treatment and classified unequivocally as a religious institution rather than simply a burial place, on the grounds that professional Shinto priests serve the shrine, and amulets are provided to the bereaved family and prayers of gratitude are offered to the enshrined spirits. The shrine is not affiliated to the Honcho Since the war, visits by prime ministers of the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which has been in government throughout most of the postwar period have continued this practice with, from 1974, an additional visit on August 15, the anniversary of Japan's surrender. In most cases Prime Ministers have visited ostensibly as private individuals or were deliberately ambivalent about the status of their visit. Because of the separation of religion and state and the prohibition on use of public funds for religious rites prescribed in the postwar of Japan, these semi-official visits have provoked continuing dissension and opposition especially from non-Shinto religious groups and democracy activists in Japan. Visits to the Yasukuni shrine are a matter of particular sensitivity because since 1872 the shrine has functioned as a war museum, managed until 1945 by the war ministries, displaying with pride items such as fighter planes, submarines, tanks and guns, and with plaques celebrating Japanese military exploits in Asia including the Nanjing massacre. Following five unsuccessful attempts by the LDP government in the early 1970's to have a bill passed by the Japanese parliament for state support of the Yasukuni shrine, Prime Minister Nakasone, Yasuhiro visited the shrine in 1983 and signed the register with his official title. On 15 August 1985, despite publication of an inconclusive report on the issue of the shrine's status by an advisory committee, the LDP cabinet paid formal tribute at the shrine. This action met with strong opposition in Japan and infuriated Japan's Asian neighbours, with the result that further visits were suspended. The government nevertheless indicated that it still proposed to move towards formal tribute at the shrine by the Emperor, the cabinet and the jietai (the Japanese armed forces) There have been other cases brought against prefectural governments who have made donations to Yasukuni. The Yasukuni shrine question turns on the issue of whether Shinto is a religion, and whether Shinto rites can be performed as civic ritual, and is thus intimately connected with cases such as the jichinsai and the self-defence force case. See jinja |
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| Yata no kagami |
The mirror (kagami) of Amaterasu-o-mi-kami which is one of the three imperial regalia (sanshu no shinki) The etymology is unknown but "yata" is connected with 'eight'. Various sources record that the legendary emperor Sujin in the first century BC ordered it to be removed from the imperial palace. For up to a hundred years it was carried by the high priestess and temporarily installed for several years at a time in shrine after shrine before Amaterasu declared in the year 5BC, according to the that she was satisfied with the 'secluded and pleasant land" of Ise, the twenty-ninth and final resting place of the mirror. The replica of the mirror made for the imperial palace was damaged by fire on several occasions in the tenth and eleventh centuries and its fragments are now held in the |
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| Yatai |
Ornately decorated festival floats of many different kinds, weighing up to several tons and designated locally by various names, most incorporating the word "mountain", such as yama (mountain) hiki-yama (pulled mountain) yamagasa (mountain hat) and Evidently some kudos attaches to having the largest, heaviest and best-ornamented yatai. They should be distinguished from the which is a palanquin carrying the kami. The ceremonial transfer of the mikoshi to the of the kami during a festival (shinko-shiki) may be conducted separately from the parade of floats, though the two activities are at least integrated into one festival. The floats are religious to the extent that the community's celebration of its own identity is religious |
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| Yatai |
they are showpieces for the skills, customs, folk- (and fine) arts and communal values of the local community, and their function in relation to the kami where they form part of a shrine procession is to please and entertain the divinity. They frequently incorporate onstage performances, often, for obvious reasons of scale, by children or puppets rather than adults (see Furyu-mono) Descriptions of some of the floats which take part in numerous festivals around Japan may be found under the various mentioned in this dictionary. Floats in their present variety of forms appear to have originated at the matsuri in Kyoto. Yatai were banned from Tokyo in the late era because their height interfered with overhead power lines, so festivals in Tokyo feature only mikoshi, though these may be divided (as at the sanja matsuri of Asakusa) into 'honja mikoshi' (true mikoshi) containing the kami and "machi-mikoshi" (town mikoshi) which are essentially mikoshi functioning as yatai |
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| Yatsu-mune-zukuri |
"Eight-roofed style'. "Eight" is used figuratively to mean "large" and yatsu-mune shrines usually have five- or seven-part roofs. It refers to a shrine architectural style (- zukuri) exemplified by the Kitano Tenmangu in Kyoto. It is a a development of the style, with a small room (ishi-no-ma, room of stone) connecting the and |
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| Yearly Meeting |
YM |
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| Yellowstone Bible Camp |
YBC |
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| Yellowstone Bible Experience |
YBE |
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| Yeshiva B'nei Torah |
YBT |
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| Yezo |
Indigenous inhabitants of Japan who were gradually pushed back to the northern island of Hokkaido by Japanese expansionist wars. Hokkaido was fully colonized by the Japanese only in the 20th century. Ainu culture is different from Japanese, but there have been many cross-influences in the long course of Japanese-Ainu relations in the Japanese islands. Ainu festivals include kotan similar to festivals. The Kushiro kotan matsuri dedicated to the deity of lakes now takes place in Kushiro, Hokkaido on the second Sunday in September. The best-known Ainu festival is the iyomante or kuma matsuri |
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| Yoga Meditation Insight |
YMI |
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| Yogoto |
A form of recited for the continuity of the imperial reign. The Nakatomi no yogoto is recited on the day of the emperor's accession and the yogoto of the no miyatsuko of Izumo is pronounced at the beginning of a new reign |
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| Yohai-jo |
"Place (or hall) for worship from afar (yohai) A location, often a small building, used for worship of another holy site from a distance, or for worship of an inaccessible "inner" shrine (okumiya) from a more convenient spot. From the 1870's yohai-sho of the jingu were established throughout Japan (some became provincial kotai jingu) as part of the effort by Ise priests to focus the worship of the population on the Ise shrines. In prewar Japan (and until 1947) the term yohai was used for the ceremony of bowing to the imperial palace from schools |
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| Yohai-sho |
"Place (or hall) for worship from afar (yohai) A location, often a small building, used for worship of another holy site from a distance, or for worship of an inaccessible "inner" shrine (okumiya) from a more convenient spot. From the 1870's yohai-sho of the jingu were established throughout Japan (some became provincial kotai jingu) as part of the effort by Ise priests to focus the worship of the population on the Ise shrines. In prewar Japan (and until 1947) the term yohai was used for the ceremony of bowing to the imperial palace from schools |
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| Yohaiden |
"Place (or hall) for worship from afar (yohai) A location, often a small building, used for worship of another holy site from a distance, or for worship of an inaccessible "inner" shrine (okumiya) from a more convenient spot. From the 1870's yohai-sho of the jingu were established throughout Japan (some became provincial kotai jingu) as part of the effort by Ise priests to focus the worship of the population on the Ise shrines. In prewar Japan (and until 1947) the term yohai was used for the ceremony of bowing to the imperial palace from schools |
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| Yoi-matsuri |
"Eve-of festival'. The day, or evening, before the hon-matsuri or main festival day. A Japanese festival often seems to cover two days because the traditional "day" lasted from sunset to sunset |
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| Yomi |
According to interpreters of the and the nether world and land of the dead, the source of evil and pollution. It is inhabited by magatsuhi no kami, evil spirits and is the place to which went after her death. It may originally have referred to the tombs or mortuary-huts built by prehistoric Japanese rulers. The notion that yomi is our final destination was canvassed by Norinaga, Motoori but his bleak description of yomi, however scripturally orthodox from a point of view, holds little attraction for the deceased or their well-wishers remaining in this world and in practice few Japanese believe that the dead go to yomi. Most funerals (sosai) are conducted according to Buddhist rites and the dead become ancestral spirits, i.e. |
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| Yori-shiro |
Something which serves as a receptacle, medium or symbol of the kami |
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| Yoshida |
Priestly clan (from 1375; formerly the Urabe) Along with the Shirakawa clan, the Yoshida filled the post of for the Imperial household. Scholars and spokesmen such as Yoshida, Kanetomo and Yoshida, Kanemigi established their authority as experts in the history and status of shrines, initially in central Japan around Kyoto but eventually in all areas of Japan. Though their influence waned under criticism from Hirata, Atsutane and other activists in the late eighteenth century the Yoshida were responsible up to 1868 for issuing licences and ranks to all shrines except the minority directly linked to the Imperial house which came under the control of the Shirakawa. Under their tutelage many local kami and folk-deities were given official recognition and lay people became increasingly involved in the communal management of shrines |
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| Yoshida (or Urabe) Kanetomo |
Shinto supremacist and founder of Yuiitsu Shinto, unique, peerless or unitarian Shinto, known also as Yoshida Shinto. Born into the 21 st generation of the family (formerly called the Urabe, diviners and onmyo-sha) Kanetomo inherited priestly responsibilities for the jinja at a time when the court nobility was less and less able to support this shrine to the ujigami of the Accordingly, Kanetomo developed a form of unification (yui-itsu) Shinto combining the existing and Tendai Buddhist understanding of kami with onmyo and Chinese five elements cosmology and adapting Shingon rituals to enrich Shinto. He explained rei (spirit) and kokoro (the human heart) as a form of absolute existence prior to the creation of heaven and earth and promoted the idea that the yaoyorozu no kami Kami "myriads of kami" formed a unity rather than an unconnected pantheon, and that this unity should be worshipped on Mt. Yoshida. He attracted the vigorous hostility of the priests of the jingu by announcing in 1489 that the deity of Ise had transferred its residence to the Yoshida shrine. His intention was to bring all official kami-worship under the control of the Urabe/Yoshida family, and he was to a large extent successful in this, since the Yoshida became responsible for granting shrine ranks. Kanetomo's teachings strongly influenced the doctrines of, amongst others, Yoshikawa, Koretari, founder of shinto |
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