Did you ever have the feeling you were being watched?

This was taken at Toyokawa Inari (豊川稲荷), a very popular place to go in Toyokawa City.

Technically it is a temple. It's true name is Myogonji (妙厳寺) and it has no association with Shinto, but this is a recent separation and an official one. All the locals know the place as Toyokawa Inari and think of it as a Shinto shrine. The place has several torii gates and of course all these fox (kitsune) statues which are a sign of an Inari shrine.^[1]

You find a lot of this confusion between Shinto and Buddhism in shrines and temples across the country. Why the confusion? Well, you see, in the past the two religions were more or less the same thing.

Shinto came first, although scholars argue about if it was really organized in any way beyond local customs and superstitions, and then Buddhism was introduced. Eventually Buddhism swallowed up Shinto. Much time and effort was spent linking Shinto kami to Buddhist bodhisattva and tying both mythologies together. At this time you would see traditional Shinto elements (such as the torii gate) show up in Buddhist temples, you would see temples within shrines, and so on. A lot of movement between the two, because they had basically become one.

This period of combination (神仏習合 Shinbutsu-shūgō) ended at the beginning of the Meiji period (1868-1912) as the government forcefully divided the two religions and heavily promoted Shinto as the one true religion of Japan. Unfortunately this resulted in the destruction of many temples and many Buddhist artifacts.

Back to the photo, this is a somewhat isolated section of the shrine/temple. You follow a trail into the woods for some distance. After awhile you come to a clearing and it is full of hundreds of these fox statues. It's kind of an eerie effect.

Many of the statues are holding scrolls in their mouths, by the way. Messages to Inari, I suppose. A list of who is naughty and nice, perhaps. Better be nice to them!

	David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.

1. Inari Okami is the kami of good fortune, of business, of good rice harvest. As such, Inari shrines are the most popular type of Shino shrine in the country. ↩