Early origins
Ancestors are kami to be worshiped. Yayoi-period village councils sought the advice of ancestors and other kami, and developed instruments, yorishiro (依り代), to evoke them. Yoshishiro

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The arrival of Buddhism in Japan in around the sixth century introduced the concept of a permanent shrine. A great number of Buddhist temples were built next to existing shrines in mixed complexes called jingū-ji (神宮寺, literally: "shrine temple") to help priesthood deal with

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The defining features of a shrine are the kami it enshrines and the shintai (or go-shintai if the honorific prefix go- is used) that houses it. While the name literally means "body of a kami", shintai are physical objects worshiped at or near Shinto shrines because a

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Those worshiped at a shrine are generally Shinto kami, but sometimes they can be Buddhist or Taoist deities, as well as others not generally considered to belong to Shinto. Some shrines were established to worship living people or figures from myths and

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The following is a list and diagram illustrating the most important parts of a Shinto shrine:
1. Torii –

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Shrine buildings can have many different basic layouts, usually named either after a famous shrine's honden (e.g. hiyoshi-zukuri, named after Hiyoshi Taisha), or a structural characteristic (e.g. irimoya-zukuri, after the hip-and gable roof it adopts. The suffix -zukuri

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The Shake (社家) is the name for families and the former social class that dominated Shinto shrines through hereditary positions within a shrine. The social class was abolished in 1871, but many shake families still continue hereditary succession

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