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Concept
Jingū-ji
Summary
Until the Meiji period (1868–1912), the jingū-ji were places of worship composed of a Buddhist temple and a Shintō shrine, both dedicated to a local kami. These complexes were born when a temple was erected next to a shrine to help its kami with its karmic problems. At the time, kami were thought to be also subjected to karma, and therefore in need of a salvation only Buddhism could provide. Having first appeared during the Nara period (710–794), jingū-ji remained common for over a millennium until, with few exceptions, they were destroyed in compliance with the Kami and Buddhas Separation Act of 1868. Seiganto-ji is a Tendai temple part of the Kumano Sanzan Shinto shrine complex, and as such can be considered one of the few shrine-temples still extant.
When Buddhism arrived in Japan, it encountered some resistance from pre-existing religious institutions and beliefs. One of the first efforts to reconcile pre-existing Japanese religion with Chinese Buddhism (in what would later be called shinbutsu shūgō, or amalgamation of kami and buddhas) was made in the 8th century during the Nara period with the founding of so-called jungūji or shrine-temples, religious complexes consisting of a shrine and a temple.
The first shrine-temple ever was very probably Usa Hachiman-gū, where a temple called Miroku-ji was completed in 779, however the earliest clearly documented case is that of a man who in 749 in Kashima, Ibaraki prefecture built a temple next to a shrine.
Behind the inclusion within a shrine of Buddhist religious objects was the idea that the kami were lost beings in need of liberation through the power of Buddhism. Kami were then thought to be subject to karma and reincarnation like human beings, and early Buddhist stories tell how that the task of helping suffering kami was assumed by wandering monks. During his wanderings, some local kami would appear in a dream to a monk, telling him about his problems. To improve the kami's karma through rites and the reading of sūtras, the monk would build a temple next to the kami's existing shrine.
Official source
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