Interesting Facts!! #30

30. Home Altars

Today, altars are still found quite widely in Japan, especially in rural areas, but in urban areas they have become less common and less important, with many families only keeping altars in their traditional households in the countryside.

Shinto Kamidana

Buddhist Butsudan

The three most common altars in Japan are the Shinto kamidana 神棚, the Buddhist butsudan  仏壇 and the non-specific tamadana  魂棚 (spirit shelf). These altars serve overlapping functions and are often found together, with one or two missing or occasionally combined. Kamidana are for respecting Shinto kamis (Gods or Deities)  and the Imperial family, tamadana are for venerating regional household spirits and butsudan are for giving respect to the Buddha, Buddhist deities and the family ancestors. That the most common function that all types of household altar serve are as ritual areas where ancestors can be venerated. 

The most common altar is the Buddhist's butsudan (仏壇), in Japan it's the center of the family's worship and devotional activities, as an important communication tool between this world and the world of the afterlife; it also produces a sense of continuity between the generations, like when people report to the ancestors events related to the living members of the family.

The term butsudan is commonly written today with two characters meaning 
“Buddha altar,” but the original and correct form has a different character for dan 檀 meaning “patron” as in terms such as danka 檀家 or dan’otsu 檀越 (both referring to patron or sponsor of Buddhism and its ritual activities). 

There are butsudan of many different shapes and dimensions, but in general it is a cabinet (miniature shrine, zushi 厨子)-like piece of furniture made of wood. Inside, the butsudan presents a hierarchical, three-tier structure. Butsudan's have folding doors on the front.On the top tier there is a platform, which is a miniature reproduction of a temple’s main altar. On this platform there is a buddha image (the main focus of worship of the household or honzon 本尊), sculpted, painted or represented by a written formula (myōgō 名号). Below is an indicative list of the standard images recommended by the most important Buddhist denominations in Japan. The buddha image is placed on a hourglass-shaped platform, sometimes called the shumidan 須弥壇 (lit. “Mount Sumeru altar”) because it reproduces the shape of the cosmic mountain, Mount Sumeru, which is at the center of the Buddhist universe. On a layer below the main buddha image are placed the funerary tablets (ihai) of the ancestors, the family record (kakochō 過去帳),6 scriptures, offerings, and a votive lamp. In this way, the butsudan is a veritable “religious cosmos” for the family, as it displays a vision of Japanese Buddhist cosmology related to the ancestor cult, namely, the Buddha at the top and human beings at the bottom, with the ancestors in between acting as mediators between these two realms. The place of contact between the secular and the profane is represented by the lower tier, in which human beings place their offerings and other tools needed to communicate with the world of the deceased. 

-The more you know~