Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Shinto task force/Archive 1

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

I just made a graphic of a Gohei....maybe you can use here it somehow. I dunno...whatcha think?


Mekugi (talk)

We need to come up with a Shinto box like the one above. Any ideas? --日本穣 Nihonjoe 06:49, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely! How about this one?

Part of a series on
Shinto
Beliefs Kami List of deities Polytheism Animism/Animatism Mythology Sacred objects Sects and schools
Major kami Amaterasu Sarutahiko Ame-no-Uzume Inari Izanagi Izanami Susanoo Tsukuyomi
Important literature Kojiki (c. 711 CE) Nihon Shoki (720 CE) Fudoki (713–723 CE) Shoku Nihongi (797 CE) Kogo Shūi (807 CE) Kujiki (807–936 CE) Engishiki (927 CE)
Shinto shrines List of Shinto shrines Ichinomiya Twenty-Two Shrines Modern system of ranked Shinto shrines Association of Shinto Shrines Shinto architecture
Practices Festivals Ritual dance Music Ritual purification Ritual incantations Kannushi Miko
See also Religion in Japan Glossary of Shinto Syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism Edo neo-Confucianism Ko-Shintō State Shinto Kokugaku Nippon Kaigi Mythical creatures History Secular Shrine Theory
Religion portal
v t e

There's also a new userbox: {{User Shinto}}

Enjoy! --日本穣 Nihonjoe 18:41, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

The current organization there is abit muddled, and needs some discussing how to deal with. A general proposal for cleaning it up is posted at Category talk:Religious leaders#Organization proposal, and more input would be great. It doesn't address the issue of Religious leaders/religious workers/religious figures, but that is another issue that exists. Badbilltucker 22:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The group indicated above was recently revitalized for, among other things, the purpose of working on those articles whose content is such that the article does not fall within the scope of any particular denomination. To most effectively do this, however, we would benefit greatly if there were at least one member from this Project working on those articles. On that basis, I would encourage and welcome any member of this Project willing to work on those articles to join the Religion WikiProject. Thank you. Badbilltucker 14:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It has come to my attention that Japanese Buddhism ties as directly to Shinto as it does to Buddhism in general. Would the members of this project object if the scope were expanded a bit to include articles relating to Japanese Buddhism as well, provided that the articles deal primarily with this specific form of Buddhism? The articles would still fall within the scope of the Buddhism project as well, but would probably benefit from getting the additional support from the Shinto editors, who probably know more about the Japanese elements than most members of the Buddhism project are likely to. I of course welcome any and all responses, positive or negative. Badbilltucker 21:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this project might work better as a task force of WikiProject Japan. Anyone have any thoughts on that? ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Please discuss this in a discussion here--Sefringle 03:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

There is a new WikiProject task force proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Inter-religious content that is being proposed to deal specifically with articles whose content relates to several religious traditions. Any editors interested in joining such a group would be more than welcome to indicate their interest there. John Carter 15:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

How Do I say this name again????

I have a list of missing topics related to religions, including a part that is related to shinto. I wonder if anyone of you could have a look at it. Than you. - Skysmith 09:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for not having responded earlier, but I do see the moving of the project page to being a subproject of Japan as being potentially problematic, for a few reasons. One, this page's main listing is more or less on the Religion wikiproject page, WP:PROJDIR/PR, and it does make it less likely that people would join the project as a religion project if they see that it is not seen primarily as a religion project, but as a task force of a national project. Seeing that, one might think that the group is not so much about "religion" as about a given country, and that might turn people off from joining. Also, it makes it apparent that the religion itself is not so much seen as religion per se, but rather as an aspect of a specific national culture, which would kinda turn off any individuals interested in the project who are not themselves Japanese or in Japan. Personally, I think it would probably best be listed under its old name, although I wouldn't have any objections whatever to seeing it included in "related project" on the WikiProject Japan sidebar. John Carter 14:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, the Japanese barely view it as a religion (the same goes for Buddhism), and it is a religion in which almost all adherents are Japanese (yes, there are non-Japanese who practice it, but they are very few in number). Shinto is an aspect of the Japanese national culture (a very large aspect), and if someone is turned off only because it's a taskforce instead of a project (semantics, really), then that doesn't really say much for them, does it? It will operate the same as before, but as a taskforce which will hopefully gain more attention than it did as a separate project. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 02:39, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

• Category:Japanese deities is the parent of three categories:
  • Category:Japanese gods
  • Category:Japanese goddesses
  • Category:Shinto kami

The category "Japanese deities" includes a few articles that I think should be in one of the subcategories.

Do we have a policy on the inclusion of articles in "Shinto kami"? Hachiman is there but Ebisu isn't, in spite of Nishinomiya Shrine being "the head shrine of Ebisu sect of Shinto, under which it is said that there are about 3500 shrines". Also, Ebisu is now at Ebisu (mythology), but I would be more comfortable with (Shinto) or (deity) or some other such tag. Whogue 10:20, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Soku-no-Kumi may be a hoax, or some character in a game or a novel. See Talk:Soku-no-Kumi. Thank you. --miya (talk) 06:26, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The opinion has been expressed that the sources on the religion section of the overall/general Japan article are not credible enough, not reliable/verifiable enough. If better sources are not found ASAP, drastic changes will be made to that section, removing discussion of the fact that while the vast majority of Japanese are officially counted by Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples both as belonging to those institutions, most Japanese when asked directly will claim to not be religious. This is a crucial aspect of religion in modern Japan.

Can anyone please please please help!? Surely someone out there must be a Religions of Japan scholar, with proper serious professional academic sources? LordAmeth (talk) 13:06, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I have a question...why is it that when an article is about Christianity, Islam or Judhaism it is religion but if it mentions Buddhist, Shinto, Hindu deities is is called mythology?Miyashita (talk) 19:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

It would help a lot if you indicated specifically which articles you're talking about. Generally, I think the arrangement as such is that, for instance, an article about Noah's Ark is considered a "biblical" article, and thus falls under the Bible, Christianity, Judaism, or other projects and banners. They are generally thought by some to be "mythological" but the categorization people for the mythology project are probably overworked in a big way and may not have gotten around to changing those specific content yet.

For what it's worth, most of the stories about Jehovah and Jesus and the like which aren't to some degree or another supported by some sort of independent historical evidence could be called "mythological" as well. My guess, and it's just a guess, is that, when the English wikipedia was first being set up, it was set up, rightly or wrongly, to reflect prevailing Western opinion. In that way, Eastern stories are "myths", Judeo-Christian stories are considered "religious", because in some cases there may be some independent historical evidence to support them, and well, Westerners have biases too, however much we might try to keep them from appearing. A lot of categorization and changing of content still has to be changed. Also, I think you should note that, as per the Wikipedia:WikiProject Mythology page, the word "myth" as it is being used is not intended as derogatory.

Adam and Eve and some of the other stories are I think being called "myths" now as well. But the stories which seem to have some degree of object, tangible support for their having taken place as described, or which describe a religious entity outside of a "mythic" story, don't qualify as "mythology", and are still called "religious". There is some effort and interest to standardize things, but with 2000000+ articles out there, it is going to take a very long time to get things standardized across the board.John Carter (talk) 19:46, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I've been trying to create and expand some pages on Shinto shrines lately, and I was surprised to find out that there is no info box for these pages. Something like Template:Infobox Buddhist temple. Proposed attributes would be:

• name
• img
• img_size
• img_capt
• shrine category - such as imperial shrine, inari shrine, local shrine, etc.
• dedication - applicable if the shrine is dedicated to a specific kami
• founded
• closed
• founder
• address
• country
• phone
• website

List may not be perfect, suggestions welcome. These are the important basics, however. I'm really new at this, so I'm not really sure how infoboxes come to be, but I think if Buddhist Temples have a box, Shrines would benefit from them as well. Anyone that can help me out with this? Torsodog (talk) 01:09, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not all that good with coding, but I'll give it a try. I was actually just the other day thinking, surely there's a Shinto shrine infobox around here somewhere... LordAmeth (talk) 08:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I copied the code of the Buddhist temple infobox and made a Shinto shrine box from that - see Template:Infobox Shinto shrine. There may be some more attributes which could be added or taken away; the "shrine category" notion sounds nice when it comes to Imperial Shrines, and a very few limited other options, but for the vast majority of shrines I think this will simply be redundant with the enshrined kami, e.g. Inari shrine, Tenjin shrine, Hachiman shrine. Also, I chose vermillion for the color scheme as I think it more or less matches the color used on torii and on Shinto buildings more generally. But if people don't like it we can change it. Of course, any other changes people think are good, please go ahead and do it. LordAmeth (talk) 09:24, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much! This infobox, in my opinion, was really very necessary, and you really helped me and the rest of the community a lot by making it. Thanks again! Torsodog (talk) 21:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a proposal to convert the draft infobox template {{Infobox church/sandbox}} into a template that can be used for all places of worship. We would like your views on whether you think this is a good idea, and if you are able to help identify parameters that would be relevant to the religion that your WikiProject deals with. Do join the discussion taking place at "Template talk:Infobox church". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 03:51, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Anyone interested is encouraged to come participate in this discussion. Thank you. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 01:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I found this topic Ōgamiyama Jinja while editing articles for Daisen. I have done an English edit, but maybe someone here can take a look.

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Now, I realize that we ought to use, as much as possible, third-party sources, and that in any case books or articles are more trusted than pamphlets or the like. That said, when it comes to individual locations, like a shrine, particularly less major, less important ones, more often than not the most detailed information is going to come from pamphlets obtained there, and signage.

Here comes my question. If you've visited a Shinto shrine, you may have obtained a white single-sheet of paper, printed on both sides and folded, with the name and address of the shrine, and a fairly official, formal-looking account of its origins, enshrined deities, abbreviated chronology (i.e. important dates), festivals, and how to get there. I am working from one of these on an article on Okinawa's Naminoue Shrine (波上宮); the document I have says 波上宮略記 on the front, along with the mitsu-tomoe symbol of the shrine (and of the Ryukyu royal family), the shrine's address and phone number and like that.

I want to cite this as my source, and I feel it's as reliable, formal, official a source I'm going to find. But "pamphlet from the shrine" or the like doesn't sound very official or reliable as a cited source. Does anyone know of any better way to phrase this? This isn't just a touristy pamphlet guide like you get at any and every historical site; it's a white formal guide that follows (I believe) the same format at every Shinto shrine, and which if I remember right I had to ask fairly specifically of the miko to get.

Thanks. LordAmeth (talk) 20:49, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

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Hi, I'm wondering if anyone in your project group has considered creating an entry on how Shinto terms, beliefs, myths, etc... are used in pop culture, especially video games. I've been trying to keep some useful semblance to the Pop culture section of Amaterasu but people are continually adding incidental references. It seems fairly common for some author to just grab the name Amaterasu when they need a good goddess or a symbol for the sun/fire. The same goes for a lot of Shinto figures and symbols. I feel bad reverting all of them but they aren't really informative to someone reading about Amaterasu. I don't know enough to write about it myself. It should be addressed in some way, but the list format on a lot of these pages is counterproductive and really a nuisance. Any thoughts? Ando228 (talk) 15:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

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Korean-Shinto has been nomianted for dleetion at WP:AFD 76.66.196.218 (talk) 04:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Could somebody have a look over the "Kumano Hayatama Taisha" entry in this list. It is entry 101 and close to the end of the list. I am not sure that I got the translation of the Shintō gods 熊野速玉大神, 夫須美大神, 家津御子大神, 国常立命 right. Also, is there something like Glossary of Japanese Buddhism for Shintō? bamse (talk) 18:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

熊野速玉大神, 夫須美大神, 家津御子大神, 国常立命 are gods of Shintō. Not buddism'. I think that translations are right.--Pontafon (talk) 15:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Is there an accepted English term for people who practice Shinto? "Shintoists" doesn't sound right to me, but I'm no expert. Do we just say "Shinto practitioners" or "Shinto adherents"? (Even "adherents" might not be too good, since those who practice Shinto often "adhere" more to Buddhism?) I ask because it's likely that the name of Category:People involved with Shinto is too vague and unclear, and the category probably needs to be renamed so it is clear that it is a category for "adherents". I'm not formally proposing a rename here, but I'm just seeking some initial ideas about this. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:25, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_July_20#Category:People_involved_with_Shinto. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 05:00, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Shintoists is not a word. Shinto adherents and practitioners makes sence as Shinto is a spirituality of action not words. Shinto and Buddhist adherents are also not mutually exclusive. Takashi Ueki (talk) 02:38, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

"Shintoists" is a word, and anyone with a decent grasp of English will immediately understand it. Calling someone a "Shintoist" doesn't exclude them from also being called a Buddhist. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:52, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

See developed discussion thread at Talk:Kamo Shrine#Article title.

• A. Tksb proposes renaming this article -- moving from Kamo Shrine (singular term) to --> Kamo Shrines (plural term).
• B. Also, Tksb asks: "Are Kamigamo-jinja and Shimogamo-jinja regarded as a single shrine complex?"
• C. I believe that it would be better to keep the current title unchanged. Thus far, I have accepted that nothing Tksb suggests is "wrong;" nevertheless, I don't see how the proposed change would be an improvement.
• D. Today I proposed that we broaden participation in the discussion by posting here at WP:WikiProject Shinto. Perhaps this is what we should have done earlier?

• E. If I interpret it correctly, Tksb's focus is on the word "shrine." I disagree with Tksb's straightforward and reasonable thinking. My counter-argument has two parts to begin with:

• 1. Tksb's approach marginalizes the central signficance of Kami-no-Kamo and the Kamo clan family of hereditary Shinto priests. Shinto rituals and history are not secondary to the physical surroundings, structures and objects.

• 2. The works of scholars for the past 200+ years have identified Kamo Shrine as both unitary unary and/or binary, not solely as a plural, e.g., der Kamo Tempel in German, or son temple principal est au nord-est de la ville de Miyako in French. The value of our Wikipedia article will be diminished if, from the outset, we overlook what scholars have presented as axiomatic or fundamental.

• F. The question becomes one of resolving reconciling these seemingly incompatible points of view. --Tenmei (talk) 07:02, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

The tiny print of the Kodansha Encyclopedia snippet linked above states that the Kamo Shrines are:

Two independent but closely associated Shinto Shrines in Kyoto: the Kamo-wakeikazuchi jinja (popularly Kami-gamo sha) in Kita Ward, dedicated to the deity Kamo-wakeikazuchi-no-kami, and; and the Kamo-mioya jinja (Shimogamo sha) in Sakyo Ward ... [dedicated to Kamo-Tamayori-hime and Kamo-Taketsune] (emphasis added)

I added bold to the Kodansha text. Does this help clarify what I'm failing to express clearly enough? In the very narrow context of this snippet of a sentence from Kodansha Encyclopedia, Tksb's question seems like to wrong one: "Are Kamo-wakeikazuchi jinja and Kamo-mioya jinja regarded as a single shrine complex?" I would answer this question in the negative -- not a shrine complex. The relevant factors are not exposed by this line of inquiry, in my view. --Tenmei (talk) 12:54, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Plausible resolution to this problem?

I re-worked the introduction to this article; and I created new "main" articles for Kamigamo Shrine and Shimogamo Shrine.

In terms of the Venn diagram at right:

• If A=Kamigamo Shrine; and
• If B=Shimogamo Shrine; and
• If U=Tadasu no Mori and/or
• If U=activities related to Kami-no-Kamo and/or
• If U=all matters relating to Kamo clan

Then, it becomes reasonable to discuss anything to do with this shrine as if it were a unitary unary and/or binary entity; and at the same time, it is possible to discuss the shrine's constituent parts as discrete or plural entities.

Does this help to clarify what I've been trying to say? --Tenmei (talk) 23:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Copied from Talk:Kamo Shrine#Article title -- permanent link.

How about one or the other of these proposals: 1) Have the article start from the modern common perspective that there are two independent but closely associated "Kamo Shrines," and therefore give the article title as "Kamo Shrines". This may help alleviate confusion among the general public looking to the wikipedia for information about these. The chances that most people using normal English will try looking up "Kamo Shrine" to find out about one or the other or the both of those shrines seems slim. 2) Give the article title as "Kamo-jinja" in romaji, in which case the issue of whether this refers to one shrine building, a single shrine complex, or a number of independent but closely associated shrines or shrine complexes can be explained in the article.Tksb (talk) 15:18, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Now I can support your original proposal -- changing the name of the article from Kamo Shrine to Kamo Shrines. My resistance was motivated by concerns about unintended consequences. I feared that this relatively trivial change would close doors which could be difficult to re-open. Now that the body of the article is more fully developed, these worries have become less prominent.

Wikipedia's value for 21st century readers is enhanced by your common sense point-of-view. At the same time, we need to accommodate the sometimes subtle resonance of the Taihō ritsuryō, because such matters become significant in evaluating the arc of this shrine's history.

Now I can also support Kamo-jinja as an elegant alternative proposal; but the fact that the editors of Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan have named their article Kamo Shrines seems compelling. Your initial suggestion is probably best ....

Thank you for providing the impetus for what turned out to be a productive investigation. In my view, there is a place for nuance in Wikipedia projects; and this thread has developed into an illustrative example. --Tenmei (talk) 06:10, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion#Coordination of activity. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 19:14, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi! I am currently improving List of National Treasures of Japan (shrines) and am looking for:

• pictures for structures that don't have a picture yet,
• suggestions for good sources on shrine architecture for the lead section and the Shinto architecture article which currently looks somewhat suspicious,
• general comments and suggestions on the list

Any help would be greatly appreciated.bamse (talk) 18:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

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Hi all, I noticed the Shinto page has a {{Refimprove|date=July 2008}} tag on it. I think there is no reason this article is not FA status. I suppose the first thing is to get the refs. While we are citing them I think a lot of the page should be re-written for better copy-editing as well. I am of course going to work on this myself, but if anyone else can suggest citable sources It would be much appreciated. Cheers, Colincbn (talk) 15:06, 21 June 2010 (UTC)