Overseas Shinto

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A Shinto rite carried out at a jinja in San Marino, Southern Europe

Overseas Shinto designates the practice of the Japanese religion of Shinto outside Japan itself. Shinto has spread abroad by various methods, including the imperial expansion of the Empire of Japan during the Meiji period, the migration of Japanese to other countries, and the embrace of Shinto by various non-Japanese individuals.

Jinja outside Japan are termed kaigai jinja ("overseas shrines"), a term coined by Ogasawara Shozo [ja].[1]

In Europe

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On June 22, 2014, Europe's first official Shinto Shrine: San Marino Shrine was opened in Serravalle, San Marino. The San Marino shrine was inaugurated in the presence of 150 personalities including the president of the Association of Shinto Shrines and Yoko Kishi, mother of the former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzō Abe and daughter of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.[2][3] The shrine was established in commemoration of the victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.[4]

In Asia

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The Chōsen Jingū in Seoul, Korea, established during the Japanese occupation of the peninsula

In Japanese-controlled territories (China, Korea, the Pacific Islands, Taiwan, Manchukuo and Karafuto Prefecture), shrines were erected by both Japanese settlers and colonial authorities. Most of the sanctuaries were built by settlers, but many of them later received government recognition and funding. At first, Japanese communities built jinja for their use, often using ritual objects from their old shrines.[5][6][7] In 1900, the Japanese authorities erected the first large shrine in the colonies, it became Taiwan Grand Shrine. It was followed by other major shrines, such as Chōsen Shrine in Korea and Karafuto Shrine on Sakhalin. These shrines were built by decree of the governor and without consultation with the Shinto clergy, and their policies were determined by the military.[8][7][9]

During the Second World War, the expansion of Japanese influence in Southeast Asia led to the construction of Shinto shrines as part of the imposition of State Shinto. Countries including the Philippines, Singapore, Malaya, Borneo, and Indonesia saw the establishment of such sites. In Singapore, Syonan Shrine was formerly built to commemorate the many Japanese soldiers and military personnel who fell in the Japanese conquest of Singapore.[10] In Indonesia, a total of 11 shrines were built.[11] Among the most notable were Chinnan Shrine in Malang, Java, which was initially built to be the southernmost Shinto shrine in Asia and Hirohara Shrine in Medan, regarded as the one of the last remaining Shinto shrine in Southeast Asia.[12][13] Hirohara Shrine featured distinctive rites associated with wartime devotion and reverence for the imperial family, originating from its foundation by the Imperial Guard.[14] Among these were the performance of the Great Ceremony [ja] and the practice of Miyagi yohai  [ja], a form of worship directed toward the imperial palace from afar.[15] Another shrine that still survived is Yorioka Shrine in Malaysia, Sarawak, which built around 1912‒1923 by a Japanese rubber plantation worker in Samarahan but abandoned after the World War II. The shrine were rediscovered in 1982 by a Japanese woman named Ms. Sakai and restored it in collaboration with the Rotary Club Tokyo Haneda in 2019.[16][17] This make Yorioka Shrine as the oldest suriviving shrine in the Southeast Asia.[citation needed]

In the Americas

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United States

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Shinto Shrines, and Shintoism in general, has a long history in the United States. Shintoism was brought to Hawaii and the US West Coast by Japanese immigration in the 19th and 20th century. [18] With them they brought Buddhism, however Shinto grounded itself more than Buddhism.[19] Due to the events of World War 2 Americans grew suspicious of Shinto because of its association with the war and, among other groups, was placed on the Attorney General's proscribed list. This made it difficult for Shinto Shrines to be built and properly maintained and caused Shintoism to struggle to survive. [20] Specifically after The Attack on Pearl Harbor Shinto priests were investigated by the US government which resulted in many Japanese Americans getting rid of Japanese cultural artifacts and going as far in places like Honolulu to worship the spirit of George Washington.[21] In other cases, Japanese Americans focused on adapting to local religions and independent movements such as Konkokyo, which already had a presence in the diaspora[22] Shinto Shrines struggled because of this rejection of the religion, however in truth many Shrines, such as Kotohira Jinsha Dazaifu Tenmangu, did not receive state funding from Imperial Japan.[19] Despite this, the suspicion and aversion to Shinto Shrines from Japanese and other Americans did cause Shines to shut down, such as a second Kotohira shrine located on Koula Street in Kaka‘ako that chose to dissolve in 1944 because of this wartime pressure.[20] Many years later on October 14th 1955, Shinto Shrines were removed/redesignated from this prescribed list, and were no longer seen as restricted and a threat by the U.S government. [1]

The first Shinto shrine in Hawaii was Hilo Daijingu [ja], built in 1898.[23] It is known that shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Japanese Shintoists in Hawaii held ceremonies in honor of the former commander-in-chief of the Japanese fleet, Tōgō Heihachirō. One of the shrines, built at the beginning of the 20th century, was subordinate to both the Japanese authorities responsible for the shrine system and the American authorities, since it was registered in the state as a non-profit organization. American Shintoists were culturally influenced by their local environment.

Brazil

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Two Shinto shrines were built in Brazil before the outbreak of World War II, both in the state of São Paulo. The first one was built in 1920 by Uetsuka Shuhei in the city of Promissão. The second temple was built by immigrants in the municipality of Bastos 18 years later. Most emigrants performed rituals of worshiping the gods with their families, and less often with their neighbors.[24] 11 major shrines are still located in Brazil.[25]

In Oceania

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Micronesia

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Shinto shrines dating from during or after World War II exist in some Micronesian countries.[26]

In Africa

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Sub-Saharan Africa

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Some Shinto-inspired new religions have gained ground in various cities in Sub-Saharan Africa.[27]

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ Suga 2010, p. 48.
  2. ^ San Marino. Sarà inaugurato questa mattina alle 10.30 al podere Lesignano, il San Marino Jinja
  3. ^ "Un tempio shintoista a San Marino. E' il primo ufficiale in Europa". Il resto del Carlino (in Italian). 2014-06-22.
  4. ^ Stefano Carrer (2014-05-25). "Shintoisti a San Marino". Il Sole 24 ORE (in Italian). Retrieved 2023-09-13.
  5. ^ Nakajima 2010, p. 22.
  6. ^ Nakajima 2010, p. 30—32.
  7. ^ a b Hardacre 2017, pp. 431–432.
  8. ^ Hardacre 2017, pp. 404–406.
  9. ^ Nakajima 2010, p. 36.
  10. ^ "Syonan Jinja on Infopedia". National Library Board. 2004-12-24. Archived from the original on 2015-10-02. Retrieved 2015-08-11.
  11. ^ 中島, 三千男; 津田, 良樹; 稲宮, 康人 (2019-03-20). "旧オランダ領東印度(現インドネシア共和国)に建てられた神社について" [On shrines built in the former Dutch East Indies (now Republic of Indonesia).]. 非文字資料研究センター News Letter (in Japanese) (41): 17–23. ISSN 2432-549X. Archived from the original on 2023-09-27. Retrieved 2023-08-11.
  12. ^ Inamiya, Yasuhito; Nakajima, Michio (November 2019). 非文字資料研究叢書2 「神国」の残影 [Remnants of "Sacred Country" | Photographic Records of Sites of Overseas Shrines] (in Japanese). Kokusho Publishing Association. ISBN 978-4-336-06342-7. Archived from the original on 2023-08-01. Retrieved 2023-08-01.
  13. ^ "スマトラ.メダンにある日本の歴史遺産 紘原神社 - 「老人タイムス」私説". goo blog (in Japanese). Retrieved 2024-04-17.
  14. ^ 中島, 三千男; 津田, 良樹; 稲宮, 康人 (2019-03-20). "旧オランダ領東印度（現インドネシア共和国）に建てられた神社について" [On shrines built in the former Dutch East Indies (now Republic of Indonesia)]. 非文字資料研究センター News Letter (in Japanese) (41): 17–23. ISSN 2432-549X.
  15. ^ Saito, Shizuo (1 March 1977). 私の軍政記 : インドネシア独立前夜. Japan Indonesia Association. OCLC 673871439.
  16. ^ "Remnants Of The Japanese | Sarawak Tribune". 2022-11-03. Retrieved 2025-10-28.
  17. ^ Ng, Xael (2022-11-07). "In Sarawak, a Hidden Japanese Shrine Offers an Alternative Pre-WWII History". RICE. Retrieved 2025-10-28.
  18. ^ Crum, Richard M. (2018). A Shinto Shrine Turned Local: The Case of Kotohira Jinsha Dazaifu Tenmangu and its Acculturation on O‘ahu (Master’s thesis). University of Hawaii at Manoa.
  19. ^ a b "UF Digital Collections". ufdc.ufl.edu. Retrieved 2025-11-17.
  20. ^ a b Kōji, Suga; 𳜳𨀉𠄈 (2010). "A Concept of "Overseas Shinto Shrines": A Pantheistic Attempt by Ogasawara Shōzō and Its Limitations". Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. 37 (1): 47–74. ISSN 0304-1042.
  21. ^ "UF Digital Collections". ufdc.ufl.edu. Retrieved 2025-11-17.
  22. ^ "History - Konko Church of San Francisco". 2023-03-28. Retrieved 2025-11-17.
  23. ^ Shimizu, Karli (2019). "Religion and Secularism in Overseas Shinto Shrines: A Case Study on Hilo Daijingū, 1898–1941". Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. 46 (1): 1–30. doi:10.18874/jjrs.46.1.2019.1-29. hdl:2115/75172. ISSN 0304-1042. JSTOR 26854498. Archived from the original on 2021-05-04.
  24. ^ Frank Usarski, Rafael Shoji (2017). "Buddhism, Shinto and Japanese New Religions in Brazil". Handbook of Contemporary Religions in Brazil. pp. 279–294. doi:10.1163/9789004322134_018. ISBN 9789004322134.
  25. ^ Picken 2011, p. 274.
  26. ^ Oskow, Noah (2020-07-13). "When Japan Ruled the Waves: The Forgotten Colonies of Micronesia". Unseen Japan. Retrieved 2023-09-24.
  27. ^ Louveau, Frédérique (2020-07-06), "Japanese Spiritualities in Africa: From a Transnational Space to the Creation of a Local Lifestyle", Transnational Religious Spaces, Munich: De Gruyter, pp. 245–262, doi:10.1515/9783110690101-013, ISBN 978-3-11-069010-1, retrieved 2024-01-25

Sources

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