Hiyoshi Taisha Shrine（日吉大社）

Shintoism is a local Japanese religion to respect nature and Buddhism is an imported religion which has had the main foothold in Japanese religious view. Sometimes, there were some disputes over its dominance upon Japan's religion, but its fusion can be seen in some places in Japan. Hiyoshi Taisha Shrine is one of them.

Hiyoshi Taisha Shrine （日吉大社) is located at Mt. Hiei's foot in Ohtsu, Shiga. Mt. Hiei, a UNESCO's world heritage, is one of the biggest Buddhist monasteries, founded by Saicho（最澄)
, a high monk who started a Buddhist's group called Tendai-Shu after study and training of Buddhism in China.

East Headquarter

Firstly, I would like to mention the shrine's origin briefly. The shrine is comprised of the two main shrines (West headquarter and East headquarter). Its origin is unclear but it has been confirmed that there was an animism ritual for worshiping the mountain in the place where the shrine exists. In the east headquarter of the shrine, a mountain god called "Oo-yamakui" , the same deity as Matsuno-o shrine, is being enshrined and the god was said to be a divinized object in the animism time.

West Headquarter

In 666 AD, Emperor Tenｊi (天智天皇：626-672 AD）established a new capital city and imperial court in Otsu area called "Oumi-Kyo （近江京）". Like other emperors in history, he wanted a guardian to protect his imperial court and the city. Using flexibility of divine spirits, he decided to move a part of spirit of the country's founder, Oo-kuni nushi from Nara to this Hiyoshi Taisha Shrine. In this way, the shrine's west headquarter was established.

Back to Saicho's Buddhism, when he founded his monastery at Mt. Hiei, he also wanted to have a guardian of the mountain as Emperor Tenji did. At the time, Hiyoshi Taisha Shrine had already existed and he knew a mountain god was enshrined. Therefore, he decided to consider this shrine as the monastery's protection. Buddhism and Shintoism has different cultures each other so Saicho's decision created some unique "mix" of the two religions.

One of the mix cultures is its gate. The gate is called "San-no Tori-i Gate" or "Gassho Tori-i Gate". San-no means a mountain king and Gassho means joining your hands in prayer. You can see its difference in comparison with the typical gate shape; there is a triangular shape on top of the gate. Usually, Gassho is made for Buddhism prayers, so having this triangular shape on the shrine's main gate, they may have tried to mix the culture.

San-no Tori-i Gate

Usual Tori-i Gate

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