Hokora

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title: "Hokora" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["architecture-in-japan", "shinto", "shinto-religious-objects"] description: "Miniature Shinto shrine" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokora" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Miniature Shinto shrine ::

::callout[type=note] Japanese shrines ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/祠svg.svg" caption="The character 祠"] ::

Hokora or hokura is a miniature Shinto shrine either found on the precincts of a larger shrine and dedicated to folk kami, or on a street side, enshrining kami not under the jurisdiction of any large shrine. Dōsojin, minor kami protecting travelers from evil spirits, can for example be enshrined in a hokora.

The term hokora, believed to have been one of the first Japanese words for Shinto shrine, evolved from hokura, literally meaning "kami repository", a fact that seems to indicate that the first shrines were huts built to house some yorishiro.The word yorishiro literally means approach substitute. Yorishiro were tools conceived to attract the kami and give them a physical space to occupy, thus making them accessible to human beings.{{cite book |last=Tamura |first=Yoshiro |title=Japanese Buddhism - A Cultural History |publisher=Kosei Publishing Company |location=Tokyo |year=2000 |edition=First |chapter=The Birth of the Japanese nation |isbn=4-333-01684-3 |page=232 pages

Notes

References

References

1. Encyclopedia of Shinto, [http://eos.kokugakuin.ac.jp/modules/xwords/entry.php?entryID=249 Hokora]. Accessed on December 14, 2009

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::