Draft:Rokusho Shrine, Ichikawa

This is a draft article. It is a work in progress open to editing by anyone. Please ensure core content policies are met before publishing it as a live Wikipedia article. Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL Easy tools: Citation bot (help) | Advanced: Fix bare URLs · Article logs · Draft logs. Last edited by CommonsDelinker (talk | contribs) 3 months ago. (Update) Finished drafting? Submit for review or Publish now

Rokusho Shrine, Ichikawa
Sōja shrine
Glossary of Shinto

Ichinomiya and Soja are not the same thing but were sometimes combined[2]Rokusho shrine (six place) is a very common Soja shrine name^[3].^: 601 Sōja (総社, draft) is a type of Shinto shrine where the kami of a region are grouped together into a single sanctuary. This "region" may refer to a shōen, village or geographic area, but is more generally referred to a whole province. The term is also occasionally called "sōsha". The sōja are usually located near the provincial capital established in the Nara period under then ritsuryō system, and can either be a newly created shrine, or a designation for an existing shrine. The "sōja" can also be the "ichinomiya" of the province, which themselves are of great ritual importance.^[4]

Whenever a new kokushi was appointed by the central government to govern a province, it was necessary for him to visit all of the sanctuaries of his province in order to complete the rites necessary for ceremonial inauguration. Grouping the kami into one location near the capital of the province greatly facilitated this duty,^[5]

The first mention of "sōja" appeared in the Heian period, in the diary of Taira no Tokinori, dated March 9, 1099 in reference to the province of Inaba. ^[6]

The name "Sōja" is also found in place names such as the city of

• Ichinomiya
• Katori Jingū (Shimōsa Province Ichinomiya
  )